The Bay

The Bay team is sharing each of their favorite episodes of 2023. This episode, picked by producer Maria Esquinca, was first published on Nov. 15. In it, KQED reporter and producer Blanca Torres talks about a nonprofit that organized accordion classes to help farm workers affected by the Half Moon Bay shooting heal from their trauma. 

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The Bay team is sharing each of their favorite episodes of 2023. This episode, picked by host Ericka Cruz Guevarra, was first published on June 12. In it, The Bay team visits a pickleball court in Oakland’s Bushrod Park, where the sport has grown in part because of its intergenerational draw.

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Sandy Stier and Kris Perry were plaintiffs in a landmark case challenging California’s Prop 8, which banned gay marriage in 2008. Their trial went all the way to the Supreme Court, and would eventually restore marriage equality to California. This year, KQED invited Stier and Perry to watch unsealed tapes from the trial of their younger selves taking the stand for marriage equality, and to reflect on what it meant to be part of that fight all these years later. 

Episode Transcript

Links: 

• Inside the Trial That Overturned California's Same-Sex Marriage Ban

This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca, Adhiti Bandlamudi, and Ericka Cruz Guevarra

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Nestled in the Berkeley Hills, Indian and Mortar rocks are popular hangout spots known in part for epic views of the Bay. For climbers like Berkeleyside reporter Ally Markovich, they’re known for their outsized role in the development of bouldering. 

But for the native Ohlone, the boulders are a symbol of a destroyed cultural landscape, and an urgent call to protect native history.

Links:

This episode was hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra and produced by Ericka Cruz Guevarra, Maria Esquinca, and Adhiti Bandlamudi

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Two very Bay Area crises – sea level rise and the housing crisis – are colliding in the East Bay city of Newark, where the city will consider plans to build housing on one of the few remnants of the Bay’s vast marshland. It’s a fight for the marshes’ future, which environmentalists say should be maintained as natural flood protection. 

Links: 

• Bay Area Housing Project Raises Concerns About Sea-Level Rise

This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Alan Montecillo, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

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Despite the many languages spoken in the Bay Area, Alameda and Solano Counties only send out emergency alerts in English, leaving at least one in ten Bay Area residents at risk of missing life-saving information in the face of disaster. El Timpano senior reporter Jasmine Aguilera explains why that is, and which counties are succeeding in disseminating critical information to everyone.  

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Our beautiful state is in danger. Human-caused climate change has dramatically increased the risk of destructive wildfires — and now we anticipate them every year. So how do we process the grief of what we’re losing? And how can we use that pain as fuel to make change?

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This episode was produced by Maria Esquinca and Alan Montecillo, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra. The interview was conducted by Erin Baldassari.

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Patti Poppe started a new job as CEO of PG&E in 2021, after the company emerged from bankruptcy for the second time in two decades. She sat down with KQED’s Marisa Lagos and Scott Shafer of the Political Breakdown podcast to discuss the future of the utility.

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The California State University system is the largest public university system in the nation. This week, faculty at four campuses — Cal Poly Pomona, San Francisco State, Cal State Los Angeles, and Sacramento State — launched a series of 1-day strikes. KQED’s Juan Carlos Lara takes us to Tuesday’s strike at SF State, where faculty and staff say they’re fed up with working conditions, low pay, and looming job cuts.

Episode transcript

This episode was produced by Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

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Brooklyn Basin is poised to become Oakland’s largest housing project, promising 3,700 new homes on the site of a former shipping dock. In a state where building just about anything can be a challenge, how did this one finally get off the ground?

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This episode was produced by Alan Montecillo and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.

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