San Francisco City Insider
This podcast has merged into Fifth & Mission, the flagship newscast of the San Francisco Chronicle. Please subscribe to Fifth & Mission on your favorite podcast app.Old description: From the back rooms of City Hall to the chaotic streets of downtown, the San Francisco City Insider provides insight into the biggest news stories and most pressing issues facing one of the most interesting cities in the world. Chronicle columnist Heather Knight hosts, with regular appearances from The San Francisco Chronicle’s City Hall team – Trisha Thadani and Dominic Fracassa. They ask the tough questions of our city’s leaders to find out what’s going right and what needs to change.
76
San Francisco’s Deadly Streets - And What Could...
Five years ago, city officials vowed to eliminate all traffic deaths in 10 years in a safe streets program dubbed Vision Zero. Halfway through those 10 years, San Francisco is making no progress in eliminating traffic fatalities. Already this year, 12 people have died in traffic including seven pedestrians, a bicyclist, a skateboarder and three people in cars. Jodie Medeiros, director of the pedestrian advocacy nonprofit Walk San Francisco, talks about why San Francisco can’t seem to get a handle on making its streets safe - and what changes are needed to make Vision Zero a reality.
26 min
77
Homeless Navigation Centers: Now What?
The city's plan to build a homeless shelter on the Embarcadero faces a legal challenge. Jeff Kositsky, director of San Francisco’s homelessness department, talks about the need to balance an emphasis on short-term shelters with permanent housing.
13 min
78
Fixing SF's Behavioral Health System Is Difficu...
Something isn’t working within San Francisco’s behavioral health care system, but city officials don't exactly know how to fix it yet. City Hall reporter Trisha Thadani breaks down why it's so complicated, and what San Francisco is doing to add more coordination, focus and accountability to the system.
10 min
79
Tribute to the Richmond District
A tribute to the Richmond District, recorded at the historic Balboa Theatre, before a #TotalSF screening of "So I Married an Axe Murderer."
31 min
80
America’s Most Woke Library
A chat with Michael Lambert, San Francisco’s new city librarian. The title sounds pretty old-school, but the city’s libraries are anything but. They’re about to become fine free. They host drag queen storytimes. They were among the first to add social workers to the staff since libraries are also makeshift homeless shelters. And last year San Francisco was named the nation’s best library system.
24 min
81
The Queen of Car Break-ins
Shirin Oloumi is known as the Queen of Car Break-ins. She doesn't break into cars. She prosecutes the people who do. Every car break-in that leads to an arrest in San Francisco crosses her desk, and she not only makes the charging decisions about them but appears in court to argue to Superior Court judges that the city’s property crime epidemic needs to be taken more seriously.
16 min
82
Why S.F. General's bills are so damn high
Now that San Francisco General Hospital’s sketchy billing practice—in which privately insured patients are personally on the hook for their bills—have been revealed, there’s a central question: Why are the bills so high? From $34,000 bumps and bruises to $92,000 appendectomies, these amounts are outrageous because of the ever-inflated hospital “chargemaster.” That’s the list of rates, which is approved each year, no questions asked, by the mayor and the Board of Supervisors, who admit they had no idea what they were voting on. City Hall reporter Trisha Thadani interviews columnist Heather Knight about the latest in the billing scandal.
11 min
83
Inside San Francisco’s Mental Health Crisis
Rachel Rodriguez, a social worker in San Francisco General Hospital’s psychiatric emergency room, is incensed at the way some people are painting the move toward conserving more mentally ill people. She’s in favor of the changes and explains why — and why the current system is so broken.
27 min
84
“Difficult” Supervisor Hillary Ronen
From her insistence she wasn’t elected president of the Board of Supervisors because of sexist ideas about her being “difficult” to her drive to build more homeless navigation centers and shelters in her district despite neighbors’ resistance, Ronen isn’t afraid to say what she thinks. She’s the firebrand of the board — and she loves that reputation.
38 min
85
A State Solution for SF General’s Brutal Billin...
Assemblyman David Chiu has heard the stories - of regular San Franciscans going to S.F. General with appendicitis, broken bones and migraines and getting stuck with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. Even though they have private insurance. Chiu is teaming with State Sen. Scott Wiener to propose a state ban on all balance billing and cap what hospitals can charge for services at either 150 percent of Medicare’s rates or the average cost of insurance contracts. It would be a big hit to the city’s trauma center’s bottom line, but Chiu says it’s not fair to expect privately insured patients to shoulder such huge burdens.
21 min
86
Seeking Small Miracles for the Homeless
Miracle Messages uses social media to try to connect homeless people in San Francisco with long-lost love ones in hopes of getting them back home with someone who cares about them. They’ve matched nearly 200 pairs, but founder Kevin Adler says the city could do more to help. Heather Knight interviews Adler and joins him downtown as he and his fellow "ambassadors" talk to people living on the streets.
29 min
87
An Early Look at the Race to Become San Francis...
Columnist Heather Knight and Hall of Justice reporter Evan Sernoffsky discuss the already crowded field to replace San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon. For the first time in about a century, there will be no incumbent in the race - meaning the field is wide open and several impressive candidates are already raising big money and gathering key endorsements. Who has the upper hand? What do San Franciscans want in their next DA? Get the inside scoop here.
20 min
88
185 Million Reasons to Fight
Official discussions about how to divvy up San Francisco's $185 million windfall were set to begin at Wednesday's Budget and Finance committee meeting. These discussions have become about a lot more than just which city budgets should get a boost. They're about what kind of city San Francisco wants to be. Trisha Thadani reports from City Hall.
8 min
89
City Attorney Dennis Herrera and the S.F. Votin...
San Francisco voters have recently approved major tax increases to fund homeless services, teacher pay raises and childcare, but the money’s being kept under theoretical lock and key until the courts weigh in. At issue is whether these measures really needed two-thirds voter support versus the simply majority they received. City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s controversial advice that they only needed a majority is what set off this hullabaloo. Columnist Heather Knight interviews him about it, as well as other subjects like his fight against the oil companies to pay up for climate change and, of course, his favorite burrito.
30 min
90
San Francisco School Teachers and Their Struggl...
Stephen Torres-Esquer, an award-winning special education teacher at Lowell High, talks about how hard it is to make it in one of the world’s most expensive cities on such a paltry salary. As San Francisco politicians fight over how to spend a surprise windfall of more than $184 million, he tells Heather Knight he’s likely to return soon to his hometown of Stockton, where he could buy a house and even open a savings account.
24 min
91
Does City Hall Have the Fix for District Six?
New Supervisor Matt Haney has barely begun his new job representing District 6, but he’s already deluged with meeting requests, emails and tweets from residents fed up with the filth, needles and feces on their sidewalks. He’s fed up with it too and said the Tenderloin and South of Market can no longer be the city’s dumping ground and residents can no longer be ignored. He even says there’s been a city conspiracy to allow these issues to fester in District Six, but we’ll let him explain.
32 min
92
The Great Progressive Compromise
For the first time in years, progressives have a majority on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but their inability to unify around a single candidate for board president shows they have a long way to go to exert their power. Trisha Thadani reports on the victory of gentlemanly Norman Yee over firebrand Hillary Ronen.
6 min
93
Best of City Insider: Jane Kim
Jane Kim was a San Francisco Supervisor who was running for mayor when she talked to Chronicle columnist Heather Knight for this episode, which ran on March 21, 2018. Kim, who lost in her mayoral bid and was termed out from her seat on the Board of Supervisors, is known for big, bold ideas, only a fraction of which became reality at City Hall. But she centered her mayoral campaign on a very practical policy initiative: cleaning the city’s notoriously dirty streets.
15 min
94
Best of City Insider: Marc Benioff
The 61st floor of the Salesforce Tower was the setting for San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight's interview with CEO Marc Benioff just before the 2018 election. Benioff talks about his support for Prop. C, the initiative to tax big businesses — like Salesforce — to raise money for homeless services, and why he scolded other San Francisco CEOs for not doing the same. From Nov. 2, 2018.
18 min
95
Best of City Insider: Police Chief Bill Scott
San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight talks to SFPD Chief Bill Scott about the epidemic of car break-ins and what residents and the police can do to prevent these crimes. Scott also talks about homelessness and injection drug use on the city’s streets. From April 2, 2018.
23 min
96
The San Francisco Movie Special
Chronicle columnist Heather Knight talks to Bay Area movers and shakers about their favorite San Francisco films. "Vertigo" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" get a lot of votes as Mayor London Breed, Marc Benioff, State Senator Scott Weiner and others weigh in.
15 min
97
Best of City Insider: Candidate London Breed
When London Breed sat down with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight in April, she was the president of the Board of Supervisors and the former acting mayor — after her colleagues had booted her from office. She was also running for mayor, a race she would win in June. In the April 4, 2018, episode of San Francisco City Insider, then-candidate Breed talks about her childhood in the Western Addition, her plans for San Francisco, and the fact that she worries about her own housing situation even as she serves in the upper echelons of city government.
32 min
98
Divvying up San Francisco's unexpected windfall
Late last month, San Francisco woke up to find itself $415 richer. The question now is: Where is all that money going to go? Competing plans have already emerged, and some groups, including education advocates, are already making the case for why they should get a piece of the pie. City Hall reporter Trisha Thadani is here to help us make sense of it all. Hosted by Dominic Fracassa.
21 min
99
State Senator Scott Wiener
The San Francisco Democrat talks with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight about his proposal to give all homeless people in California a right to shelter, his second try at making car break-ins easier to prosecute, and one surprising benefit of being 6-foot-7.
27 min
100
Election 2018: Analysis from The Chronicle's po...
Breaking down the props, the measures, the midterms and looking ahead to 2020
43 min