Bay Area Cities Welcome New Leadership
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From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal. New year, new mayor. Daniel Lurie takes office in San Francisco today, while across the Bay in Oakland, the post-recall interim mayor situation is shaping up. And Barbara Lee, longtime congresswoman, announced she's running for mayor this morning. All over the region, we've got new city council members, new county supervisors, new mayors. We're

We're going to reset the state of local politics as the November electoral winners take office and the whole bay prepares for another Trump administration. It's all coming up next after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Daniel Lurie coasted to a relatively easy win in the San Francisco mayor's race. He beat London Breed, whose rise from the city's public housing to its top political post was a tremendous story.

Lurie began life at the other end of the socioeconomic spectrum, a fact that he used to his great advantage during the race, outspending anyone ever in a mayor's race with just his own cash.

He was broadly most voters' number one or number two choice. Both Mark Farrell voters and Aaron Peskin voters both seem to think he shared some of their politics. Now that he's taking office, we'll get to see how Lurie governs. Will he govern as the moderate, who the Farrell voters saw, or the progressive, who Peskin voters found acceptable, or will he carve out some new lane?

We're going to have the whole political team here in a minute, but up first to discuss, Lurie, we're joined by Scott Schaefer, senior editor at KQED's California Politics and Government desk and co-host of Political Breakdown, of course. Welcome, Scott. Hey, good morning.

So you've observed a lot of mayoral transitions in San Francisco. I mean, is this like a mini presidency? How does this work? Well, we like to think of ourselves as a nation, don't we, here in San Francisco? I mean, if you think back to the last few decades, there have been a lot of mayoral transitions, and a lot of them have been forged either by tragedy or elections where Gavin Newsom became lieutenant governor.

This is a relatively normal transition. It was an election. The incumbent lost, and Daniel Lurie has had quite a bit of time now to meet department heads and think about the budget that he's going to be confronting with an $800-plus million deficit.

So, you know, there's a lot. You're suddenly you're the dog that caught the car. And, you know, as of noon today or so, he's going to be responsible for everything that happens in the city. I worked for Art Agnos when he became mayor and it was just a matter of 48 hours before the first crisis hit. You just don't know. And sometimes you don't know what you don't know because there's litigation going on that you don't learn about until, you know, you've been briefed by the city attorney.

So there's a whole lot of unknowns. I mean, I think the thing that's good for him is he comes in with a pretty big reservoir of goodwill. You know, he didn't alienate a lot of people during the campaign. He was, as you said, the first or second choice of most voters. He self-funded his campaign. So he doesn't owe a lot of people a lot of things.

And that could enable him to bring that fresh set of eyes that he has along with the insiders that he's going to be bringing and make some choices that could be difficult to balance the budget, maybe poke some sacred cows that others who were endorsed by a lot of unions, for example, couldn't do. So as I say, we will see. But I think there's a lot of hope. He's been spending the last few weeks since the election really out in the public doing civic service things, public service, cleaning up trash.

being very, very visible. I mean, I think all of us have seen him at various events since then. So I think, you know, all of that, and he's got a sunny day to take office. So, you know, it's a good start for him. Yeah. I mean, so he is a political outsider, you know, not a city hall person. What do people need to know about Lurie's approach to this transition?

Well, you know, he's probably the most inside outsider we've had as mayor because although he has never been elected to office, you know, he was the head of, you know, Ed Lee put him in charge of, you know, raising money for the Super Bowl here, tipping point his foundation, put him in touch with a lot of nonprofits and city leaders.

He can pick up the phone and call CEOs or Michael Bloomberg. Well, he did, right? I mean, he put together this board, right, that had all these, you know, Michael Tubbs, former mayor of Stockton. Sam Altman from OpenAI across the street there. Yeah, like what do we make of that kind of bringing in of kind of Northern California superstars into like a city government role? Well, I think it says, A, he's got a pretty good Rolodex. Number two, people like to work with him. You know, I've heard from folks who've worked with him over the years that he's

I've heard the word kind. We'll see how that works out in the mayor's office. That's not like the number one qualification you need necessarily. But I do think that he has a lot of connections that he has already drawn on and will continue to draw on to hopefully the benefit of the city. You know, he's also got some very clear goals.

that he ran on, homelessness, the fentanyl crisis, affordability, public safety. He's going to be judged on all those things. And as I said, as soon as he takes the oath, it all comes to him. And the issues, as my former boss, Art Agnes, used to say, they come at you like heat-seeking missiles. The easy stuff gets solved. The credit for things gets taken by other people.

And it all ends up on your desk. And, you know, he is untested in this regard, very much so. And so I think, you know, to your earlier question, what kind of a mayor is he going to be? Which path is he going to take? We don't know. We'll find out. We'll see, you know, which way he moves on various issues that will help give us some clues to that. For people who are coming officially into the administration, like listeners may have heard Alicia Jean-Baptiste on this show from Spur.

Does it can we detect anything about how he's going to govern from the people who we know are going to be part of that inner circle? Well, I think he's drawing. He understands that as an outsider, he does need some folks who know how city government works. You need those people to help you figure out where the landmines are. You know, how do you negotiate with the unions? And I think his transition team reflected some of that.

You know, I think that he is, you know, he's going to be somebody who listens. I think he's, you know, he's also, you know, we've seen him during the holidays. He comes to these parties. He walks in the room. He's not a big personality. Unlike, say, London Breed or Willie Brown, who walks in and you know they're in the room. Daniel Lurie is much quieter. He listens. He's more deliberative. He's very sort of, I think, data, going to be data-driven and accountability for himself and others.

And so we'll see how that plays with voters and whether he ends up sort of more to the middle, to the right of the center by San Francisco standards. But I think he is somebody who's going to be a little quieter personality than we've seen in recent years. Before we turn to Oakland, I mean, do you think that he's going to need someone near him who's going to be sort of his hammer, you know, who's going to be –

The person who goes and slugs it out in these kind of city fights? Well, I mean, ultimately, you have to do that as mayor. Like I said, when you're in the room with the unions or whoever, the board of supes, whoever it is, you know, attorneys who are suing the city, whatever the situation is. And I think that's a question. What is his personality? We found him occasionally to be a little thin-skinned during the debate that Marisa and I did, for example, a few months ago. And you have to have thick skin. You have to be...

But you have to be able to make enemies. And he hasn't had to do that, really. I mean, tipping point, you're handing out money to people. You're like Santa Claus. Now, especially with a budget deficit that he's going to have to solve very soon, you're going to have to make some tough decisions that make people angry, that disappoint people. He's going to find out very quickly that the honeymoon fades quite fast. Let's bring in another voice, Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter here at the station, also working on Oakland issues.

Before we get to Barbara Lee announcing she's running for mayor, which is the big news this morning, what is the interim mayor situation in Oakland right now? Yeah, so there's definitely a lot of news at Oakland City Hall this week, a lot of shuffling going on. So on Monday, Councilmember Kevin Jenkins was sworn in as interim mayor. He's going to be mayor until the special election on April 15th, you know, OKC.

Oakland has a lot of change right now. Kevin is the third mayor in just two months. We're going to have another mayor starting around May or so. There's also three new city council members, a new city attorney. So there's a budget crisis. There's a lot going on. Yeah.

Barbara Lee came on Political Breakdown earlier this week, I believe. Let's just hear a cut of her discussing whether or not she's going to get into the Oakland race. I really do my homework. I do deep dives. I've had at least 50 to 75 meetings with people. You know, I have to know exactly what's going on.

what challenges there are, what the possibilities are, and if this is something that I could contribute to. And believe you me, if I make a decision to run, it's going to be because I want to do it and I think I can help make life better for everyone. So this week we'll be issuing a statement.

And indeed, she has issued the statement. 30 minutes ago. Yeah, 30 minutes ago. You know, for people who are not familiar with Oakland's politics, I mean, Barbara Lee is sort of the big fish in the pond, right? I mean, she has been in Congress representing the East Bay for a

A lot of years. Are people scattering from this? I mean, is she cleared the field like already by 30 minutes in? Or do you think people, for example, like Lauren Taylor, who's basically been running for mayor since he lost to Sheng Tao two years ago, is he still going to hang in?

Well, I think it's obviously very early. I was able to reach Taylor as soon as I found out about the announcement just driving in my car over to KQED this morning. He did not say that he is dropping out. In fact, it seemed that he was kind of doubling down and, you know, creating a contrast between him and Lee.

as, you know, paintingly as being someone who's been around for generations, someone for not generations, but decades, you know, and someone who's kind of the old guard who's from the federal government. And, you know, he would be someone who has a fresh perspective, who would be thinking about what actually works for Oakland really on the ground here. So, yeah.

Yeah, just basically that there's something that's needed in the federal legislative space that's different from what you might actually need in Oakland. Scott, you probably remember when Ron Dellums, who preceded Barbara Lee in the very seat that she has been in, left Congress and came back to Oakland, ran for mayor, won for mayor. I mean, Barbara Lee would be doing literally the exact same thing again.

What do you think? I mean, just... Well, I mean, first of all, of course, it's a different time. They're different people. She was Delham's chief of staff. She knew him very well. Neither has a lot of executive experience, which I think is the concern, I think. But Barbara Lee is pitching herself, as she did when she talked with Marisa and me on Political Breakdown, as somebody who's going to use her connections both in Washington and Sacramento. She served in the legislature for many years, although a lot of those

Yeah.

I assume she would not run for a full four-year term, but who knows what she would do. Not after 75 interviews with people in Oakland. I mean, that's going to be a tough job. It is a tough city to run. And it's not a strong mayor city either. So you have to obviously deal with a city council that's sometimes going to be at odds with you. And I mean, Alex Hall, really briefly, we don't need to go quite in depth on the line items of Oakland's budget, but Oakland is in trouble on a budgetary level.

Yeah. And, you know, the city is, as we speak, trying to fix that. They've browned out two fire stations, eliminated police academies, canceled funding for arts and culture projects.

taken a number of measures that, and this is just the first phase. The next phase, if it were approved, would eliminate 91 or 92 jobs. Four more fire stations would be browned out. And so as Oakland deals with this budget deficit and deals with the next budget process, the next mayor is going to come in right when the mayor is supposed to present the budget proposal to the city council. So

That is going to be messy. We're talking about new leaders taking office across the bay. We've been joined by Scott Schaefer, senior editor with KQED's California Politics and Government Desk. He's going to host the 10 o'clock hour, so we're going to let him go. Thanks for joining us, Scott. Thanks, Lex.

We're also joined by Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter with KQED. And the rest of the team is going to join after the break. We want to hear from you. What questions do you have about the new elected in our community? Give us a call. Numbers 866-733-6786. Forum at KQED.org. Blue Sky, Instagram, Discord. We're KQED Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more right after the break.

Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF and Some Like It Hot, a new musical direct from Broadway from Tony Award-winning director Casey Nicholaw. Set in Chicago during Prohibition, Some Like It Hot tells the story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit.

Featuring Tony-winning choreography and an electrifying score, Some Like It Hot plays the Orpheum Theatre for three weeks only, January 7th through 26th. Tickets on sale now at broadwaysf.com. Support for Forum comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

From wielding the power of the law to protect people's health, preserving magnificent places and wildlife, and advancing clean energy to combat climate change, Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrig. We're talking about the new leaders taking office across the Bay Area, kind of key issues here.

affecting your city, which is to say the city's all across the Bay Area. Earlier we were joined by Scott Schaefer. I want to bring on colleagues here at the station, Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent with KQED, co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown. Welcome, Marisa. Good morning. And Guy Marzarotti, of course, correspondent with KQED's California Politics and Government Desk. Welcome, Guy. Hey, good morning. Still joined by Alex Hall, who has been covering the Oakland election for years.

A very long time, which is just never ending now, Alex. Joke's on you. Guys, so across the region, let's talk about the top issues that cities share. I mean, each city has its own particular basket, but what are the things you think that are really region-wide? I guess election fever, right? We thought it was we were through with 2024, but I actually do feel like this is another, we're heading into another tumultuous year potentially in Bay Area politics. Yeah.

It's not just the Oakland special election. For mayor, you're going to have this historic election in San Mateo County to potentially remove the sheriff from office. You're going to have a special election in San Jose in April that basically could potentially decide the balance of power in that city.

So I think a lot of the fights that we saw in 2024 are carrying over. And the issues as well, like all these cities to some extent are dealing with budgetary issues. Obviously, I would put Oakland at the top of that list. But you are in a government environment where they're not getting the same kind of support from the federal and state government. It's not 2021, 2022 when the federal government, the state government were just printing cash, sending it to local governments. So that environment has changed. And I actually think this year is like...

to maybe get a little existential is the kind of big test of the idea of regional governance as well. You have these regional issues of housing and especially transportation,

Does the Bay Area, what we think of the nine county Bay Area, want to work together towards those kind of solutions? I think we'll find out in a big way in 2025. Yeah, because like on the transit score. Right. I mean, we did show with Jeffrey Tumlin yesterday. They're in bad shape. But like BART and Caltrain are in even worse shape. Right. I mean, so you've got these we're sharing these issues of essentially the economic geography of San Francisco itself.

has changed a lot. And now you've got all the cities around San Francisco having to deal with their own transit issues as well. Yeah. I mean, I was really struck yesterday listening to Tumlin talk about how...

The downtown lines are just empty. And yet, like, the 22 Fillmore is at over 100% of where it was pre-paid. You know, it's like things have shifted. And so, yeah, I think there's a real question as to whether with new leadership coming in in San Francisco, in Oakland, like, are these...

you know, folks going to want to work together and try to actually get their arms around this. But I do think, you know, as as sunny and optimistic as we're hearing, you know, the mayor elect soon to be mayor in San Francisco be these are big deficits that everyone's facing. They are structural. I mean,

Alex was talking about the cuts that they're approving in Oakland. It sort of like flies in the face of what voters just said they want, which is more police, more order, more study services. Right. And so I do think that this is going to be a huge challenge for all of these leaders. And, you know, that's not to mention the elephant in the room, which is a very hostile Trump administration who could. I mean, as Joe Eskenazi pointed out, Mission Local claw back, you know, FEMA funds that already were given to us that could, you know, take.

Take the city to court, the counties to court over sanctuary ordinances and other things. I mean, I think there's a lot of uncertainty ahead, given how smooth the relationship has been between the Biden administration and these jurisdictions. And, you know, I don't know if you saw yesterday, but when Newsom talked about getting money for the fires down south, he's like one text, no groveling, no, you know, didn't have to kiss the ring. And it's like, yeah, well, that's about to change.

You know, as these fires heat up, obviously you're going to need the city, the supervisors in San Francisco to work with the mayor to get things done. There are new supervisors in Marisa. Do you want to talk a little bit about some of the new supes and how they may or may not work well with Daniel Lurie? Well, I

Well, I think we don't know. I mean, we were talking about this before we came on air, but like Jackie Fielder, the new District 9 supervisor. I mean, D9 is historically one of the most progressive districts in the city. Often we have seen the past supervisors in this district really clashing with the more moderate mayors. Fielder was out there all weekend at Lurie's service. Yeah, posting on Instagram, all the trash. Picking up trash, hanging out with him. I think...

You know, I was at Aaron Peskin's sort of goodbye gala last night in North Beach. And I think for progressives, there is some cautionary optimism right now. Lurie really sort of campaigned in poetry, right? He was pretty vague about a lot of the things that he wants to do and how he's going to do it.

The truth is, as we've discussed many times, this city, yes, has a lot of sort of very vicious fights, but often they're over very small policy disagreements. And so I do gather that this new crop of supervisors, you know, you have folks like Balaama Hood, who's coming in in District 5, really flipping that from a very progressive supervisor in Dean Preston to somebody who's more business oriented, you know, coming in on the more moderate side of things.

Lurie has an opportunity here to, I think, develop some relationships. And I don't think we understand what the alliances are going to be on this new board yet. I mean, this is a board London Breed would have loved to have, though. You look at the composition, the pickups that moderates had in San Francisco. I was at an event Breed was speaking at on Friday, and she was just like, I'm so jealous that this is the board of supervisors that Lurie's going to get to work with. Now, look, you could say too much of her tenure was spent

you know, battling with the board or kind of trying to paint the board as a reason she couldn't get what she wanted to get done. Maybe Lurie will have a better working relationship. I do think it helped that he had a campaign in which he basically didn't deviate at all policy wise from Breed. This was not like I have a significant policy disagreement. This was I represent change. I'm bringing an outsider perspective. Maybe that helps him kind of make bridges, even with some progressives.

And if you look at the staff that he's hired that you mentioned at the top, Alexis, these are people, a lot of them, who are not coming from... They might have some experience and they all have ties to San Francisco, but most of them have not been around City Hall a long time. A lot of them are coming from the private sector, from management consulting firms like McKinsey, from the tech sector. And so...

You know, we'll see how that plays out. But I think from a personality like politics perspective, it does offer the same kind of fresh start. It's not as if he's bringing in a bunch of people who have already clashed with these supervisors. And, you know, a good number on the board are brand new. So, yeah, there is, you know, there's a lot of unknowns, really. You know, thinking back to the last Trump administration and sort of what it kind of warped local politics. I mean, one of the things that seemed to do is occasionally would unite people.

local politics too. And Guy, I'm going to throw this to you. The complexity now is we have local civic figures who seem to be edging towards Trump, but they're also now increasingly involved in San Francisco local politics. So what was a sort of uniting force perhaps in these previous eras,

I don't know how that breaks now. Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. And I think there's a lot to be seen as well as like to what extent is now the unified control of Congress by Republicans willing to do battle with cities. I mean, look, we talked about transit. There's a lot of these big projects that are still relying on like discretionary money from the federal government bringing money.

Bart all the way through San Jose, bringing Caltrain downtown in San Francisco. Where does that stand on Mike Johnson's priority list to maybe claw some of that money back? And then as far as like, you know, as you point out that, look, Trump did make gains in every single county in the Bay Area. I don't know, does that change any kind of governing calculus locally? I tend to doubt it. But I think it's definitely something that's probably on the mind of elected officials here.

We're talking about new leaders taking office across the Bay Area and the kind of situation they're going to encounter budgetarily and otherwise. Joined by Guy Marzarati, correspondent with KQED's California Politics and Government Desk. Marie Salagos, politics correspondent here at KQED and co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown. As well as Alex Hall, our enterprise and accountability reporter at the station. We want to hear from you, of course, what are the problems you want to see addressed in your city?

What do you think about the mayoral situations taking shape in San Francisco, Oakland, or where you live? You can give us a call at 866-733-6786. That's 866-733-6786. You can email forum at kqed.org. You can find us on all the social media platforms, Blue Sky, Instagram, etc., or go to the Discord community there.

Let's bring in Chris in San Francisco. Hey, Chris. Hi. Thanks so much for doing this in such a timely fashion. I'm in San Francisco. My issue is the fentanyl crisis. The outgoing administration of London Breed seemed to have a mandate of

mandating people to treatment. And I'm wondering if the current administration has an appreciation for the fact that you can require people to participate in a drug treatment program. You can mandate them to treatment, but you cannot mandate them to actually engage in recovery. So is the new administration going to make

Treatment on demand available for those who do want recovery. And what is the strategy for making recovery available ongoing to those who are resistant? Chris, appreciate that question. Obviously, one of the huge issues in Citi was the rise in fentanyl deaths, which rose to...

unbelievable levels now seem to have leveled off Marisa Lagos, right? And maybe fell a little bit this year from last year. Still, you know, much higher than before the pandemic and before fentanyl really hit the streets in this major way. So what has Lori's discourse been about how his policies would or would not differ from London Breed?

Like a lot of things. I mean, he's talked about it in very broad terms. He says he's going to declare a fentanyl state of emergency today. He's talked about expanding shelter beds more aggressively, although I think you do have to give the outgoing mayor credit. She, I think, opened some 1,500 in the last few years. He's talked about 24-7 crisis drop-off centers, more on-demand care. But he's also talked about sort of getting tough on some things. And again, in sort of vague...

vague broad term so does that mean you know a continuation of what we've seen which is more aggressive you know arrest of drug dealers yeah I think this is among the issues that we're all sort of waiting with bated breath to see how he handles and what you know it looks like given I mean I drove down 6th street last night and for all the progress and there has been progress made on a lot of this stuff it is still pretty wild out there yeah

Guy, speaking of the progress that has been made, at the beginning of the mayor's race in San Francisco, everybody was talking about crime. Crime, crime, crime. I mean, it was it was couldn't get everyone was racing to the right on on crime.

It's fascinating because as the crime data has come out for 2024, it's actually really quite striking how low the levels of crime are relative to previous eras in San Francisco, even going back in some cases for murder, many decades. And for other types of crime, you know, a couple decades.

So what does that mean for Daniel Lurie taking office? I mean, does he get to take credit for that as people essentially that starts to?

They start to feel it? I'll be honest. I think he has a sneaky good hand. I think he's being dealt a sneaky good hand getting into this office. Take the crime numbers. I mean, that's one area. Business recovery, I don't think that's going to happen overnight downtown. But look, if AI continues to boom this industry and AI adjacent companies, they're not going to stay here in the mission. They're going to go downtown. They're going to go to Mission Bay. Housing development. London Breed actually did a lot of work to streamline the permaculture

permits, getting, you know, reforms to DBI, making it easier to develop housing.

It just so happened that the interest rates and construction costs meant no one's actually trying to build housing right now. But that's a cycle. And the next time that comes around, I think you're going to have an environment for developers that looks a lot better. And then we talked about fentanyl. Look, drug epidemics do move in cycles. And there's a lot of evidence both locally and nationally that like we've hit peak fentanyl. They call it a wave for a reason. So you take those things adding up. I actually do think, and we'll talk about homelessness, you know,

the budget, there are ongoing challenges. But I think a lot of these trends are moving in really positive directions for Lurie, just as he, you know, about to take office. And can I just say, as someone who's covered the criminal justice sort of pendulum swings for the last, you know, decade and a half, like, to me, what's so striking, given the fact that, you know, we recalled the DA over a lot of this, we've had so many conversations about penalties. What

I think, and I think the data shows has changed in San Francisco, is policing. Like, they made a concerted effort to go after car burglaries. They made a concerted effort to be visible in places like Union Square and in shopping districts. This is what works. And it's also why these budgets are going to pose challenges because policing is expensive, right? And

But it's something – and the academy classes and things like that are what you really need to build up these forces because we have seen so many folks leave the city and the region. I'm slightly less sure that we know what makes crime go up and down, but I take your point. Alex, what's happening in Oakland right now? I mean is it following the same trend as San Francisco? In terms of crime? In terms of crime. Yeah, I mean like –

The last week of December, I believe, was a 20 percent reduction in violent crime, 35 reduction homicides. And that's something that Tao's anti-recall campaign touted a lot.

I think people had different feelings about it, regardless of what the stats showed. And that continues to be true. And, you know, that's definitely playing a role in how people feel about Oakland City politics and also about the new, you know, Alameda County hiring a new D.A. Right. Right. That's right. Which we maybe we should talk about that. Pamela Price recalled.

Marisa, you want to?

I think it's also tough because when we talk about crime, a lot of it is especially in San Francisco. I mean, Oakland has historically and this goes back more than a decade, several decades, like been kind of out of the norm when it comes to violent crime, even when we've seen some waning in other places, especially San Francisco.

But, you know, a lot of this is like how people feel. And so street behavior, the fentanyl stuff, homelessness, it all ties into this sense of like, am I safe? You know, and so even if property crimes go down, if you still feel that there's kind of chaos out there, you don't you don't have that sense of safety. And I do think that that's always a challenge. And, you know, I mean, I think with someone like Pamela Price, it's like how you see this recall is really interesting.

it was put into motion almost immediately after. Immediately, yeah, the second she hadn't even done anything yet. She didn't have a chance to really prove herself. I mean, I think we can talk about whether she would have been able to do that. But, you know, it's definitely a tough job and I think all these people lining up for it might be given a little more grace than she was the same way that Chase Abudin's successor was in San Francisco. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is fascinating. I mean, Brooke Jenkins was sort of

the chosen successor, there isn't that same kind of situation. Well, it's a different city and county versus county. You know, I think just the whole structure of government is very different between the two places. Yeah, absolutely. I think that it'll be interesting to see because unlike with the city of Oakland with the mayoral recall and the special election, Alameda County voters were not really given a choice to say who they think should replace Price.

And so I went to a board of supervisors meeting a few weeks ago where they were deciding on what procedures they were going to file or follow to actually hire someone new. And during the public comment, people were like, you know, let's talk about why people actually wanted to recall Price when we're talking about who should replace her.

I will say one of the people, you know, there are a lot of current prosecutors on the list of applicants. One of them is Butch Ford, who's a very vocal critic of Price. If someone like him were to come in, it'd be very interesting to see how he, you know, what he does. Yeah.

We're talking about new leaders taking office across the Bay Area and people who won back in November. Joined by Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter with KQED. Marisa Lagos and Guy Marzarotti from KQED's political coverage team. And we want to hear from you too. You know, what do you think about the new mayors taking office? What are the problems you want to see addressed in your city? You can give us a call. The number is 866-733-6786.

866-733-6786, forum at kqed.org. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for more. Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF and Some Like It Hot, a new musical direct from Broadway from Tony Award-winning director Casey Nicholaw.

Set in Chicago during Prohibition, Some Like It Hot tells the story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit. Featuring Tony-winning choreography and an electrifying score, Some Like It Hot plays the Orpheum Theater for three weeks only, January 7th through 26th.

Tickets on sale now at broadwaysf.com. Support for Forum comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment. From wielding the power of the law to protect people's health, preserving magnificent places and wildlife, and advancing clean energy to combat climate change, Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer.

Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org. Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. We're talking about the new leadership taking office across the Bay Area. Obviously, new mayor here in San Francisco, interim mayor in Oakland, all kinds of stuff moving around across the whole region. Joined by Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent with KQED and co-host of KQED's Political Breakdown. Guy Marzarati, correspondent with KQED's California Politics and Government Desk.

and Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter with KQED. Earlier, you heard from Scott Schaefer, also from that team, hosting the 10 o'clock hour, so he headed out.

We're, of course, taking your comments and your questions about the changes you want to see in the city from this new group of elected. The number is 866-733-6786. And the email is forum at KQED.org. Alex Hull, people probably remember that at least one reason that Shanghai lost support in Oakland was an FBI investigation, right?

seemingly centered on the Duong family, longtime political contributors and well, owners of a waste management company. Talk to me a little bit about do we know any more about what's happening there? Not officially. The FBI hasn't said anything publicly about, you know, what they're investigating, who they're investigating since they raided Tao's home that she shares with her partner and other homes owned by the

I'm pretty sure it's the Jung family. I only know this because you actually said it on a podcast. I know a lot of people, I've heard public officials say Duong and Jung. Anyways, but owned by the Jung family, which owns California Waste Solutions, Oakland's recycling provider.

Um, Tao, when she was doing her anti-recall campaign, repeatedly said that she's innocent. She said that the FBI told her attorney that she's not the focus of the investigation. Um, they haven't confirmed that one way or the other. Um, we do know some of the people and topics that the U.S. Attorney's Office is interested in because of subpoenas that they issued to the city of Oakland requesting records related to Tao, her boyfriend, um, different officials, um,

And, you know, there has been reporting that some people have been called to testify before a grand jury that has been convened. But we don't know if they found enough evidence to charge anyone with a crime. It definitely feels like it's an episode two of a season long thing. And that investigation has begun. And at some point in some, you know, very wild.

And it just feels like it has a very long fuse on it because it's been going for so long. And the scuttlebutt seems to be that there are other officials that might be implicated by that. I mean, that's how these federal investigations always go. I think the difference with this one was like raiding a sitting mayor's house without...

or bringing charges. I mean, that is very out of the norm. I mean, look at the very long investigation here in San Francisco that led to a number of people going to prison. A lot of people think that the target of that investigation is the late Mayor Ed Lee, but he was never, you know, publicly in the, in the,

or there was never anything. Yeah, I mean, I think there's, however this investigation ends, there is going to be some very big questions about how they handled that and whether it was appropriate. Mm-hmm.

Changing gears here a little bit, Hillary writes in, listener Hillary writes in to say, I'd like to see the Lurie administration do something, anything to address the increase in pedestrian and automobile collisions and fatalities. Driving in San Francisco feels lawless. Most drivers are speeding on their phones, not stopping at stop signs and stoplights. It's time for police to do their jobs and start issuing tickets for violations that or we need more robust camera traffic enforcement.

I think we're getting some of that. I mean, that was already kind of in the works. And we've also seen, you know, some of these state laws going to effect around like you can't park on corners, close to corners anymore. But yeah, I think enforcement is always the question. And I, again, like that's kind of back to the broader public safety thing. I think that when, even if these are not things that are like violent crimes, murders or whatever, it does make people feel, and it is unsafe. I mean, we had police,

more pedestrian deaths last year than homicides in San Francisco, a very sort of grim data point. And so I think that's something a lot of people share. I know on a personal level as a parent in this city, that's my biggest concern is my kids going out and just walking across the street trying to get to school, is it safe? - Yeah, yeah. Barbara in San Francisco, welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me on your program. I live on Bush Street between Powell and Mason. I've been a resident here off and on for 40 years. And the amount of people that look like they're schizophrenic on a daily basis that I will encounter is horrific. I mean, I'd like to know that, you know, Governor Reagan was governor here over 50 years ago.

and everyone knows uh... you know he dumped the mental health patients on the street well if san francisco can have driverless cars on our streets now why can't we here address this issue specifically these this is not

I really think this is a very important issue, as well as the fact that there's no police in the bar, really. There's hardly any pedestrian police, that is to say, on the foot patrols. I never, ever see hardly at all. And as a resident who actually lives downtown, I have to tell you, it's disgraceful. You know, it's sort of like, what about us? What about us? Bar rights are not...

Yeah. No, I appreciate it. Thanks for bringing this to us. Guy, you want to talk a little bit about this? Yeah, I mean, I do think you've seen an increasing attention at all levels of government on how do you –

do a better job of compelling people into care, especially people with severe mental illness on the street. But I take Barbara's point like it's not as simple for Lurie as getting a favorable Supreme Court ruling that it's going to make sweeps easier. I think there's a lot of trends in San Francisco that are honestly troubling for an incoming administration relating to this. You had it late last year, like

The Breed Administration saying more than half of the people that they were encountering in sweeps were quote unquote service resistant. Basically saying, I don't care if you have a bed for me. I don't I don't want to go. What do you do in that case? Yeah. The jails are already overcrowded. Prop 36 is not going to help that. That's a huge unanswered question. And I think you combine that with the fact that, look, historically, the vast majority of people are homeless in San Francisco are San Franciscans.

But that percentage has declined in recent years. There's more and more people on the street who are not coming from San Francisco. Now, people have criticized Breed and labeled that drug tourism. I don't have the exact percentage of how that breaks down. That is a growing problem of like, what do you do? And that's going to be, I think, the top thing to watch for Lurie in the first couple weeks is like,

How does he set up a system where it's not just dropping people off at the general in the emergency room like that? That's not sustainable for the for the police department, for first responders. Well, it is an issue that he's been engaged in for a long time. Right. When he was a tipping point, they did launch this chronic homelessness initiative. I mean, there is a sense in which he that issue is the one that he has the most experience trying to trying to work with. And to Guy's point, I mean, he's coming in with more tools than anyone.

anyone has ever had given some of the state changes that we've seen, the funding through Prop 1, the CARE Court's initiative. I mean, none of these are silver bullets, but I do think there's been a concerted effort to give more tools to localities to actually deal with this. And I think, you know, we're very early yet in the rollout of all of that to see if it's working. But to Guy's point, it all takes resources. And as we've repeatedly mentioned, there are huge budget deficits. And I think just

to play on that, Alexis, like thinking about any of these folks, Barbara Lee, if she gets elected, Daniel Lurie coming in, you know, Mahan ongoing in San Jose, like one of the biggest parts of your job is to be a people manager, right? And that means not only managing your executive team, but negotiating with labor unions and sort of developing those relationships. To me, that's the biggest question mark with someone like Lurie, who's never held any sort of job in this, you know,

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting guy talking about Matt Mahan down in San Jose. I mean, kind of two questions about him. Do you feel like he's developed those chops to manage those kinds of negotiations? And secondly, I do feel like he's a big part of the conversation.

He made a bet on short-term housing in San Jose, at least rhetorically. He said, this is what we're going to do. It takes too long to build affordable housing, deeply affordable housing in San Jose. It's too expensive. We're going to do this thing. Has that paid off? Has it worked? What do we know?

Well, first on the negotiation point, I think Mahan has the advantage of in a weak mayor system like San Jose, he doesn't actually have to negotiate with the unions. That's the city manager. And then he becomes just like one vote on the council for any collective bargaining agreement. But on the short-term housing thing, you absolutely have seen

at least on the politics, a transformation. I mean, this Mahan, you know, whatever you want to say, he has elite message discipline. Like he really sticks. Back to basics. Yeah. And I think that the short-term housing thing has, he went from his first year of getting just kind of rolled on the council, not being able to find support to shift money from building permanently affordable apartments and building short-term housing to just one year later, this past June, getting a unanimous vote to make that shift.

in San Jose's budget. And then, as I mentioned this special election before, there's a chance this ends up with basically Mahan having a reliable six-vote majority. I think then you'd start to see increasing city money going towards these short-term solutions because San Jose, the costs are going to add up. Like, San Jose has these short-term housing sites that they have to find but also have to, like, staff. Like, there's, you know...

caseworkers working on their security and like the cost for that are going to escalate. So the city's going to have to find a way to pay for those in the quote unquote budget out years. But he certainly on the political end, he's made a lot of progress. Yeah. Like the build cost is low, but the operating costs are kind of high on those, right? Yeah. And I think other, so far other pieces, county government has been less willing to be like, we're going to help you with that. Hmm.

With the news that Barbara Lee is getting back into local politics, another listener writes and say in San Mateo County, Jackie Speier recently became county supervisor. While I applaud her for her wonderful service in the state Senate Assembly, U.S. Congress. Time for new blood.

County College of Sioux Van, too long dominated by the Papin, Mullen, and other families. There are many others who are qualified to serve our community and can provide new perspectives without the established ties to the old boys network. We've been having this conversation, the like can't hang it up department. We've been seeing...

Yeah.

clear the field. You have Jerry McNerney, who served in Congress for a very long time, come out of retirement to run first state legislative seat in San Joaquin County. You do have like, and we all remember the Feinstein experience. I think this is a growing question of like, when is, there's a lot of,

talk about opening pathways for the new generation but when it actually comes down to like me someone individually taking you know deciding because they are beloved I mean Jack Spears beloved Barbara Lee beloved you know yeah and they've had incredible careers and I mean we tried to push uh

on this on Monday a little bit. I mean, you know, she's 78. She's, let me just say, has a ton of energy and is obviously like not flagging it anyway, but it's like, do you want to spend time with your family? I mean, she kind of laughed. She's like, my family's used to this. They're like, go do your thing. But I do think it poses interesting questions. And I like one thing I'll be interested to hear from her is like, is this, is she saying she wants to run for this to serve out? Yeah.

It's shing tau's term and sort of help turn the city around in her mind. Or is this like and then I'll run for reelection. I mean, I don't know.

That's so it's so interesting. Are you hearing anything on that score? About Barbaralee's age? No, about her aims, maybe perhaps. Oh, after this term? I haven't heard that. I've actually had the same question myself. Yeah. I mean, that was the whole the Dell like the Dellums experience that has to be in her mind. Right. She worked for Ron Dellums for so many years and throughout his whole like Dellums throughout his entire tenure in mayor would always say, like, I never wanted to do this.

I never wanted to run. Like people came to me and said, you got to do it. Like for mayor's a thankless job. The 3 a.m. phone calls, the like crises that get dumped on your desk. You have to be the one who's like, I want this. I'm 10 toes down in on this. Given our conversations and the way she's family, I do think Barbara Lee does want this. Right. I mean, I think that it's a different potentially situation than Dellums, but you just, yeah. Like I think that it raises questions as constituents, like, yeah,

I mean, the interesting thing for me is just thinking about Oakland history. They both will be taking over in the most dire circumstances. I mean, Dellums takes over and the global financial crisis occurs, right? And Oakland is crushed by that. Now she's taking over as this

hole in the budget deficit. It's just been blown wide open. I mean, it's... The quote I can't get out of my mind is you had a former city, I think former city finance head on form a few weeks ago and he said, you would have to be certifiable to want to run for this job. Yes. Given the upcoming budget situation. I mean, like...

The massive hole they have, I think like two-thirds of the budget is police and fire. It's going to be a really messy situation. Now, you can say from Bar Belief's perspective, okay, this is perfect. I'm the only one who can make this kind of call. This is the last dance. I'm not doing this to run for another office. I can take the slings and arrows. I'm just going to go in there as a straight shooter. But it's going to be a really difficult job. Right, which...

to me would be like that's the more like altruistic kind of argument but it's just it is gonna be tough and I I just wonder if you are thinking about your legacy which I think most politicians do like yes maybe you stand to do something incredible you also stand to anger all the people who you have created this goodwill with from labor to business you know to it's just it's I

I it's a sticky situation and I keep thinking back. Yeah. To like, I think the thing that lost Shanghai, the city is the public safety concerns. And if you are in a situation where you have to cut all the people who ensure public safety, like how, um,

How do you then also turn the ship around? She's definitely got her work cut out for her, especially because like, you know, she opposed the recall. And Tao, you know, at least the organizers of the recall definitely painted her and Council Member Bass, Council Member Fife as kind of like these progressives who are what's wrong with Oakland. So Barbara Lee's coming in.

When people seemed like they had the appetite for more like moderate approach to public safety. So, I mean, I'm sure that that's part of I hope is part of Barbaralee's calculus. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because she is such as liberal icon nationally. But, you know, I don't know how she's going to frame herself in this race. I mean, to be fair, I think she would say, look at Karen Bass.

Karen Bass is someone who ran on the fact like I have all this government experience. I'm going to use it running L.A. to work with the county government, to work with the Board of Supervisors. Homelessness is down. People seem to like the job she's doing. Voters gave a huge approval to that sales tax that she campaigned on in November. So there are other examples of people kind of using. I've accumulated all this experience and knowledge. And goodwill. Now let me put it to work. I think that's right. And I think that that's easier than coming up.

you know, when you've been in D.C. and you're just kind of coming in and bringing the money back home, helping negotiate things. She's not maybe playing on the same exact like kind of progressive moderate plane as you would be if you've been on the city council or deeply involved in these things. But at a certain point, the rubber meets the

like hits the road and you kind of have to, you know, you'll have to make some calls both in a campaign and certainly if you get into office. Yeah. I'm just so fascinated that Oakland becomes a place for Jerry Brown, Ron Dellums, Barbara Lee. Obviously everyone knows I live in Oakland. We have 400,000 people, you know, I mean, these are huge political figures to want to run incredibly difficult to run city. Yeah.

Yeah. But at the same time, I mean, like the mayor only does so much, really. I mean, it's a lot of it is the city administrator. Yeah. You know, especially with the budget, a lot of that work is going to be done even before if she wins, when she would be sworn in.

you know, city administrator and staff, finance staff are going to put that together with feedback from Kevin Jenkins, I would assume. Then Barbara Lee comes in, but then, you know, I assume she would have to deal with a whole other mess after that. Yeah, quickly, I just want to say, like, one thing that is super unsexy but that both cities could really use is, like, civil service reform in San Francisco, potentially reform of the mayor and city council and, like, city manager system entirely in Oakland. Yeah.

Are those going to be conversation points? Because you don't campaign, as Eskenazi pointed out this morning, on civil service reform. But it's way more important who the thousands of workers are in some ways than who the department heads are. We've been talking about the leaders taking office and running for office across the Bay Area with Marisa Lagos, politics correspondent with KQED Coast of KQED's Political Breakdown. Thanks for joining us, Marisa.

Thank you. Alex Hall, enterprise and accountability reporter covering Oakland Forest right now. Thanks so much, Alex Hall. Thanks for having me. And Guy Marzorati, correspondent with KQED's California Politics and Government Desk. Thank you, Guy. Thanks for having me. Earlier, we were joined by Scott Schaefer. I'm Alexis Madrigal. Stay tuned for another hour of Forum Ahead with guest host Scott Schaefer.

Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Support for Forum comes from Broadway SF and Some Like It Hot, a new musical direct from Broadway from Tony Award-winning director Casey Nicholaw. Set in Chicago during Prohibition, Some Like It Hot tells the story of two musicians forced to flee the Windy City after witnessing a mob hit.

Featuring Tony-winning choreography and an electrifying score, Some Like It Hot plays the Orpheum Theatre for three weeks only, January 7th through 26th. Tickets on sale now at broadwaysf.com. Support for Forum comes from Earthjustice. As a national legal nonprofit, Earthjustice has more than 200 full-time lawyers who fight for a healthy environment.

From wielding the power of the law to protect people's health, preserving magnificent places and wildlife, and advancing clean energy to combat climate change, Earthjustice fights in court because the Earth needs a good lawyer. Learn more about how you can get involved and become a supporter at earthjustice.org.