Fogcast: The Bay City Beacon Politics Podcast

California lurches toward rent control, but the housing crisis rages on; San Francisco is closing its juvenile detention facility, but justice is still elusive. The Beacon boys discuss the pros and cons of incremental progress and count the blessings buried in the quagmire of San Francisco politics.

Sam Moss joins the Beacon team to discuss proposals in state and local government to speed up affordable housing production. Why is it so expensive to build inexpensive housing, and why are the politics of permitting so thorny? Notorious YIMBY gadfly Sonja Trauss joins the podcast to discuss the potential for building municipal social housing in lieu of neoliberal workarounds. The issue is complex, but one thing is clear: everyone is mad.

The Beacon boys join Diego's former boss, housing activist gadfly Sonja Trauss, to discuss recent homeless shelter proposals and transit density legislation. Along the way, they bump into issues of environmental law, Beto's prog rock destiny, and lobsters.

The Fogcast team mourns slain cyclist Tess Rothstein and examine's the city's action (or inaction) on street safety improvements. Will San Francisco ever value human life over cars? Supervisor Matt Haney has taken the lead, but he's also thrown down the gauntlet on another issue: navigation centers. If the City opens its largest homeless shelter on the Embarcadero, Haney says another district should open one as well. Will the real City of Saint Francis ever step up?

Diego joins student reporter Ariel Gans to interview Berkeley City Councilmembers Lori Droste and Rigel Robinson about their proposed "Missing Middle Initiative." With housing costs at an all-time high, the City may study how to reform its land-use policies to allow for more "gentle" density in residential neighborhoods. Nevertheless, the racist and classist history of how Berkeley became so segregated has already been studied extensively.

The Beacon team tackles one of the biggest blunders of the decade: SF General's ER bills. How did the Board of Supervisors sign off on this insane "balance billing" practice for so long, for a hospital that remains entirely out of network? It's not even the only embarrasment the City's government has yielded this month: the Supervisors also managed to turn a $185 million tax windfall into a shortfall of reserve funds. Could San Francisco even budget its way out of a wet paper bag?

2019 starts with a bang, as the Beacon's editorial duo brings the play-by-play from the battle for the Board of Supervisors Presidency. After a brief overview of Governor Newsom and Mayor Breed's overlapping priorities for housing, things get spicy when Diego and Jay debate the substance (or lack thereof) of the Green New Deal.

After a long break, Diego and Jay reunite to recap San Francisco's latest budget controversy: too much money to spend. The team speculates on the recent CASA Compact, a move toward regional governance that could finally tackle the housing crisis. Why can't "the city that knows how" just figure things out?

Diego and Jay huddle over Tuesday's election results and try to read the tea leaves, and your favorite political odd couple's unfiltered bickering and banter ensue. What can San Francisco learn from the East Bay? And how will Mayor Breed navigate the political minefield of a new Board of Supervisors? The duo rarely sees eye to eye, but they agree on one issue: campaign canvassers are better off with pen and paper over the leading smartphone apps.

Bike activist Matt Brezina joins the team to discuss street safety, bikeshare, and the politics of transportation in San Francisco. How can the City move away from its bias toward cars and make its infrastructure available for healthier, cheaper, and greener options? Mayor Breed's Vision Zero ambitions sound good, but what will it take to really eliminate traffic deaths by 2024?