Young women who will be the leaders of tomorrow need your support today. But first, frustrated by the more than two dozen transit agencies in the bay area that dont seem well coordinated, could a bay area lawmakers new bill be the solution . Thanks for joining us. Im kristen sze well get to some of those interviews in just a moment. But first, we want to tell you about a plan to provide more housing for farm workers in Half Moon Bay. It is moving forward as city leaders faced mounting pressure from governor newsom. The Half Moon BayPlanning Commission debated for hours last night on the plan to build a five story, 40 unit building. The final vote came in early this morning. Abc7 News ReporterGloria Rodriguez has the story. Its a great, you know, that the Planning Commission approved this project. Although we arent claiming victory yet. Theres quite a few steps ahead of us. This house at 555 kelly avenue in Half Moon Bay could become a five story, 40 unit housing for senior farm workers that would also include a resource center, nonprofit alas and mercy housing have been working on the project. Were going to have resources for the farmworkers that are going to be living here on 555, kelly uh with medical, dental and again, its a prime location because theyre able to walk, you know, to the clinic, to the church, to the grocery store. But there have been concerns about the height of the building, parking that could cause traffic congestion. And thats not all. Tuesday marked the third hours long meeting the commission discussed and questioned the project. Just reassure me that your financing is not going to fall apart. The questions were asking are not about the importance of these services. Were trying to understand the land use. Supporters of the project packed tuesday nights Planning Commission meeting that went until after midnight, with the Commission Voting in favor. The push comes after last years mass shooting, where seven farm workers were killed on two farms. The tragedy exposing their poor living conditions. Last week, the governor threatened legal action against the Half Moon BayPlanning Commission, calling for a delay to vote egregious. But mayor Joaquin Jimenez says it was not delayed but is just part of the process. I know they were accused of delaying the process, but they were not. Its something that it takes, you know, for a half a bit to develop half bombay. And im glad they came to a conclusion. So its looking into details, the size, the space, what the space is going to be used for, so what is being proposed and that was abc7 News ReporterGloria Rodriguez is before the project can move forward, though, it needs to be approved by the city council. Are you tired of pricey power bills . Well who isnt . Well, now . A New Invention by one of silicon valleys top tech minds could be the answer. Quilt is marketed as an all in one smart home climate system that will help your home go green while saving you some greens. Joining us live now to tell us all about it is paul lambert, quilts ceo and cofounder. Paul, thanks for joining us. Nice to see. Thank you for having me. Yeah, likewise. Thanks for having us here. So tell us about your previous background real quickly. Yeah. So before quilt i was at google for six years, most recently i was actually an investor within google, which is a really cool role. And prior to that, i worked on, intelligence for gmail. Okay. So you know, why did you get behind quilt . What is the big idea here . What inspired it . I wanted to make the biggest difference i could, on Climate Change because i felt like that was the most important problem facing the next generation. And i have two young kids, and, it was just really motivated to try to make an impact. And i was shocked when i learned the percent of emissions that come from homes is actually about 20, which is larger than cars. So and the go ahead, i was gonna say the largest contributor to that is the hvac system. And you know, a lot of people dont think about it, but theyre burning gas in their home just like they are in their car. And theres a lot of excitement around evs and cars right now, of course, and the electrification of vehicles. And i just didnt see the same level of innovation happening in the home space where we thought if we brought great, great, great Product Design and sort of World Class Technology to the home electrification space, we could really jumpstart it, the home electrification movement. Okay, so of course, we all know what hvac is. The traditional heating and cooling system. But how does this room by room approach work . What does the technology that makes it work kind of walk us through it . Yeah. So its called a heat pump. And its an electric way of, getting heating and cooling to the home, but it doesnt convert the electricity into heat. So its not like a toaster or Something Like that. It just powers. Its called a compressor that moves the Energy Around and because of that, theyre super duper efficient. In fact, more than 100 efficient, the system is usually more than 400 efficient. So that means, like one watt of electricity will actually turn into four watts of heat in the house, it almost sounds like magic. And the other really interesting part about it is that you can miniaturize them and put them in every room, which is something you could never do with a fossil fuel system. You would never put a fire in every room of your house that would be really unsafe, but with heat pumps, theyre very safe. So you can do that. And that allows you to create a new architecture of heating, cooling homes where you can do every room individually, which is a much more efficient. So you dont have to waste energy on empty rooms. But its, also a lot more comfortable because many people have rooms in their house that are hard to control, like too hot or too cold, and that just goes away. So can i just ask you, how does it know . Because i think the whole idea is you save energy when you dont heat or cool unnecessarily. So that is, if somebody is in the room, theres a human. Oh, that human needs to be comfortable. How does it know when someones in the room . So we have really great occupancy sensors built into the product, its actually a its a new technology. The technical word is a millimeter wave and all the, all the sort of newest occupancy sensors use this. And theyre its really quite accurate. And, you know, so if anyone has ever used sort of the old ones where you sit in an office, you have to wave your arms to, you have the lights turn on for too. Still, for too long, this is a totally Different Technology and its quite dependable. All right. So what are the advantages here. Because i know its kind of marketed as is going to save you money. But i wonder when you consider the Startup Energy needed to change temperatures in vacant rooms. Right. Does it really give us some cost comparisons . So thats actually not as simple as just, you know, turning room off when you leave. When you walk back into the room, you want it to be comfortable. And so if its gotten very uncomfortable, like, say, you know, its coming into summer now, so say the room got really, really hot. Youre going to want the ac to work as hard as it possibly can for those first few minutes. And you actually lose a lot of the savings you might have gained by the room being off. So what our algorithms do, they sort of its kind of like how you never let a hot tub get too cold. They sort of let the room drift to a point where we save energy, but were never so far away that we cant get you back to comfort really quickly. And and, and thats, thats actually a really Key Technology that weve developed now. But those mini split heat pumps are ive heard they could be less efficient in cold climates. Is that true . And if it is, do you have a solution for that . For you know, its use . I mean obviously in the bay area its fine. But what about colder places . So, our, our unit is top of the line when it comes to cold climate performance. We wanted to just make it not be an issue. Older models of heat pumps, many actually at this point decades ago had had issues there. But for example, we are 100 heating output down to negative five fahrenheit, which i think its close to 20 celsius. So, and well go well below that. Were above 90 down to 13 fahrenheit, im actually from canada originally, so i might have a soft spot for this, but we just wanted to make sure that there was no, no question. And also we didnt want a Company Named quilts to not be able to keep you warm. All right, paul, ive got many more questions, but unfortunately, due to some shifting around of todays show, ive got to let you go. But the website is what quilt. Com, right . Com yes. The quilt that keeps you warm at night. Okay. Paul lambert thank you very much. Thanks for having us. Up next, a bill to improve bay area transit. More on that a california state bill being considered may ask voters to pitch in to make transit more seamless in our region. Joining us live now is state senator aisha wahab of fremont, a cosponsor of sb 1031. Senator wahab, thanks for your time. Thank you for having me. What are the main goals of the connect bay area act in terms of improving transit . Definitely. So theres two parts of this bill. Number one is definitely consolidation and coordination to prioritize speed, affordability, safety cleanliness and our climate goals, and the second part is also funding our transit agencies right now. Last year we saw, that significant cuts were being made to transit across the board. And we have 27 different agencies in the nine bay area counties. So we want to make sure that we are prioritizing funding long term. All right. So lets break that down into the two halves. First the seamless part. Yes i understand we have 27 different transit agencies across our nine counties. And there are people who complain about, oh this doesnt match with that. I have to wait here for too long and it doesnt connect to that. Explain how you know, this bill, envisions us making it all more seamless. Definitely. Because we have 27 different agencies. They all operate very differently. And the goal is to hopefully consolidate a lot of these agencies and the work that is being done. So trying to prioritize again our ridership and making sure that we are competing with the automobile, you know, not that were competing with each other, but were actually competing with the option of driving ourselves. Right . We want to. Are you saying some agencies may be eliminated, for example, no more ac transit . Im not saying that one in particular, but its like some could be gone so that youre saving on administrative costs and things like that. So its not necessarily the agency because the work still has to be done. It is the operation and administration of those agencies. And again, this bill is to study how we would potentially consolidate. So 27 agencies. Youre talking about ac transit, which covers Alameda County bus systems in the county. But we also have, for example, a union city bus system, right, hitting some of the same routes at the same time. And so we want to see what we can do to really make that more efficient. And spend less money on it. Okay. Now lets talk about the funding piece. Right. Because i know theres a lot of infrastructure you guys want. I mean, were not talking building freeways, but really bike pedestrian friendly and things that encourage transit smoothness. So where would the money piece come from . Is this is this something people will vote for . Say yes. Taxes more . Is sales tax. What is it . Yeah, it is going to be up to the voters as to how we are going to fund these agencies. And again, this is a joint bill to both have the carrot and the stick right to make sure that we are being efficient in how we operate, but then also making sure that we prioritize, Public Transit, the bay area is largely a metro area. You know, we are getting bigger. We have an influx of population and much more. And yet people still choose to, you know, drive on the freeways and we want to make sure that we are prioritizing, Public Transit and making sure that its faster, its cleaner, its safer. It incorporates technology. You can get work done while utilizing Public Transit. And not everybody can bike. Not everybody can walk to their destinations. You know, were living in fremont and commuting to San Francisco or to san jose or oakland, so we need Better Solutions like under this , how would you how would low income and underserved communities benefit . Definitely. So low income individuals in particular are, you know, part of the Vulnerable Community that i prioritize. And i know senator wiener, whos the joint author on this bill, deeply care about. We want to make sure that, you know, taking Public Transit is cheap. It has to be cheaper than what were seeing today. It has to be faster than what were seeing today. It has to be cleaner and safer. That is the priority of this bill, and of course, you know, the seamless part, you know, making sure that, you know, you can utilize one system to pay for everything and much more, the transfers is on time. Its very clear to the rider, and were prioritizing the ridership experience. Right, thats really the reality of this bill. So this bill is now in the Senate Appropriations committee, right. And if the whole senate votes on it later this month and approves it, then what would it make it to the ballot . And when would that happen . So its very early stages right now. If it moves out of a process which is going to be tomorrow, and well see what happens with that. It moves to the senate floor. The senate votes on it, and then it goes to the assembly and then through the committees there, and more amendments are going to be made to make this bill better, and once the Assembly Votes on it, it comes back to the senate and it goes to the governor and to the voters. I know its still early, but are you not able to give me any sort of estimate on the financial or Economic Impact to individual californians, so for the most part, it will be, you know, right now its still being discussed as to whether or not its going to be a sales tax, a parcel tax, or a payroll tax or a vehicle. Miles traveled tax, we are prioritizing, you know, districts like my own, the east bay and south bay communities and how much were trying to really focus on. And the goal of this bill is to raise roughly about 1. 5 billion, annually for Ongoing Operations costs. As far as what this bill is going to cost to implement and much more, were going to see what the analysis is in regards to appropriations and how its going to be, you know, tailored after it comes out of appropriation. So itd be premature to kind of put a dollar figure on it right now. All right. I know you have about 30s, so im just going to ask you, why is this so important . I mean, i know taxes are always a hard sell, but why is this, important . Its important because we need to keep our bay area Public Transit alive, but also make it more efficient to compete with the vehicle and prioritize our climate goals. And also our region as a whole. We are one of the few metro regions that dont have a seamless transit system, and that is a priority for everybody here, state senator aisha wahab fremont, cosponsor of the connect bay area act. Thank you so much. Thank you. Were counting down to a major conference celebrating women in the professional world. Wel look at what it means to be you i the annual gathering celebrating women and their careers will take place this year at the fox theater in redwood city, new location on may 23rd. Its their first inperson Conference Since the pandemic. Joining us live now is shirley gordon, pb, pwc board member and Scholarship Committee cochair, and leah mimoun, a pb pwc Scholarship Award recipient and abc sevens race and social justice and Community Engagement intern. Shirley and leah, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having us. Absolutely. Shirley. Leah, i see that background by the way, is that our control room . I think it is, i love it, yes it is. All right, shirley, ill start with you. Explain to our viewers what the pb pwc conference is all about, the conference is about empowering women and supporting each other. And so its a terrific time to be together for the first time. As you just mentioned, since the pandemic. And its just that whole vibe around supporting one another and learning and being inspired by and being encouraged by some dynamic speakers. And so were really excited about all of our headliner speakers and just the day will be fantastic. Yeah, i think this year you have martha stewart, right . I know its always a great list. Youve had Hillary Clinton before, jane fonda. Who else do you have this year, we also have kara swisher is here, of course, with her podcast and being an editor and, bestseller list and new york, of course. And then chip conley will bring a new dimension to the program as we are talking about the diversity of our guests that will be there. And so hes talking about transformation in our different stages of your life. This years theme is boo, right. What will you explore in workshops and keynotes . In keeping with that theme . So when you think about boo, were talking about reckoning, using our own gifts and being able to be authentic and being able to express ourselves about what it means. Advocating for those things that are important to you. So it is important for us