Several ballot measures including proposition c, which would overturn the baon selling or distributing e cigarettes. Two housing measures includin a 600 million Affordable Housing bond that mayor london breed suppord appears be headed for victory. Still no winner in the close contest to elect San Franciscos. Xt district attorn thousands of ballots are left to be counted. For most of the week interim d. A. Has climbed to a slim lead over chase houboudine. And editor, columnist joe esconozzi, lcome to both of you. Lets start with the top of the topic,breezing to the easy reelection, getting almost 70 of the vote. Did she get a mandate, joe . I dont know if d i couse the term mandate, but i think she got enough votes. You would have to be splitting hairs to say thats not a good enough perclotage. What i woul at if i were in mayor brrcds inner is the vast number of people who voted for mayor and just skipped it. Tens of thousands of people. Of san franciscans apparently want to leave. You know, disturbing circumstances like these and that a fringed ndidate with disturbing racist views would and that could show some cracks in the base thof moderate movement specifically with chinese anin americans. And so given that somewhat popular and the city is going, now why werent there more people running against them . And to have a serious mayoral campaign. Between june of last year and now and the only people in the position to it would be mark leno and jane kim. And that just wasnt on the radar for them. Andhey are filling out, u know, the lay mayor, and the service as mayor, and so obviously they will ttneed a more time. Right. And you would think if you had four years instead of the time that there might havebeen more opposition to her and nonetheless, prop a we mentioned briefly, the housing bond, a victory for her and that is somthing she supported along with many other people. What does that mean in terms of l what shebe doing going forward. Obviously housing, homelessness are big issues in the escity. Huge is i mean we would look at the citys ctroller that was released and housing is on the minds of people who are considering whether they want to stay in the city or leave. I think her challenge is trying to figure out how to house all of our homeless populations. They need a place to stay and hoing is just expensive to build. You know, from the mayors ld, office that it will take about 700,000 to build an Affordable Housing unit. And about five years, the most expensive place in the world to build. Its expensive. Theres a lot of reasons why and so that is going be the challenge in trying to get income people and middle income people and also for extremely low income people who are sleeping on the streets. I want to talk about the das race and the district five race where the yors appointee is struggling to get elected on her own against dean preston, the tenant rights attornll. What difference the outcome of that make in terms of what mayor breed could do with the board of supervisors . It will be significant. Its not going to be a game changer, but it will be more difficult for mayor breed if you are hand picked and a former aid is replaced by someone who airan t you and is oor of youropponents. He almost beat london breed. Yes, he did. And so there is a progressive supemajority on the board and if they replace them, there will not be a blmoderatek anymore. And it will be a couple of moderates and iosome fa of the progressive. There will be more to make things difficult for her and to propose whatever they want, push it in front of her. Ce that couldainly be a pain for the mayor in moving forward. The votes are still being counted and it clis extraordinarile. In terms of Affordable Housing and homelessness, erica, youould think that there would be a natural coalition with almost anybody onsothe board of super. They all want to do something about that and there is a split is the not between more progressives and what they want to do when it comes to things like getting people with Mental Illness off the streets. ⌞ right there, is always a n differencelitics and how to solve the homeless crisis. Even the housing crisis in building low income housing, spending money on the top of the market to let them sort of trickle down. To house people through that with two different ways. Honestly sometimes you forget how long it wi take to build housing so when you think that they would trickle that it will take a little while before those units there, and then again we know its expensive to build in services. Lets talk about the d. A. s race. That one isreally nip and tuck as well, shortly before the t election, he will step down and the mayor will appoint one of the four people running for the d. A. Who is clinging to a very slim lead throughout the week. What influence do you thk that appointment made on voters . I think it helped and hurt d we need to note that the mayor and her advirs were aware of the potential blowback, though not as much as they got and thwere aware of the polling that wod show a low name recognition. By appointing them into the post, she waable to fire out a mountain of press releases that are approaching all the items that they care about and her opponents gripe, they were lir ideas. Now st good ideas, it is a tried and true position in politics, that complaint just goes so far and a very tough argument to say it was anything, but the political appointment, and that wemay or may not be able to see that as we sift through the adults. I want to outalk her that, i want to show you a clip on Election Night at her headquarters and sh say would capture a chant that was shown. I just want to note before we play the clip that it is blurred out and bleeped out because of what she was saying, but lets look at it. Just a anquick ation there, she was saying f the poa being the Police Officer association. And what is we will get to whether or not thats appropriate, but whats the history of r antowards the poa . The poa had led a charge. Ey had Law Enforcement agencies all around to dump money into the d. A. s race to boost both anthen in soof the harshest terms with villains who y look like t would be on that market production. But a white willie. It was a dog whistle, but not a whistle whistle. And it has been a big force in San Francisco politics for quite a long time and while they still have a lot of money, they have been losing races left and right and fairly late. And they are out st with them even. They are a step with almost everybody in the city and they still have that unionized representation so you could say they would have it coming with regards to that frustration. I dont think that it will be wise to do that in public that way and to play into their narrative that thwould tell their cops that everybody hates you and only we could represent you. It was an unwise g th do. Just quickly as they were they would overturn their ban on ecigarettes and sales. And of course at the very end after spending about 18 million, they pulled back it because of all the bad publicity. What is the implicat fact that they so soundly, 81 of the voters saying no, were going to keep that ban. And you know they would have ke 160,000 in votes, you , showed them the polls,consideri the ballot and that housg bondmeasure and that proposition got 16000 votes. So it is just the contentious matter that the fact that youre at home that will bring them to the polls for this one, you know. And just the last word for you. I dont think that they would pull back because of bad publicity, but the campaign that they were running locally was undermining the goal of getting the fda approval. And they were shooting themselves in that foot by t claiming tthey are a smoking sensation device and doing so in a way that they were undermining their efforts with the fd nga and consul the fda, which is not a good thing to do. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. On monday josan se mayor led the coalition of californias mayors and supervisors, in urging the states top regulator to turn pg e into a customerowned cooperative. More than two dozen lawmakers from northern and central californ have signed onto the efforts, representing nearly five million pg e customess. Meanwhile on y Governor Newsom met with bill johnson in sacramento. Last friday the governor anpounced the tments of the new energy czar saying the state could take over if it doesnt emerge from bankruptcy by the start of next years wildfire season. Joining us nois our politics correspondent. The former president of the Public Utilities commission, now welcome to both of you. Lets giwith this letter. What is the case that the mayor and all the atother people are turning this into a customerownedsetility . Their will track what people would like to see them take it over and anybody th would like to see sort of the current structure edreso currently this is a publicly traded company, they inare paid dividends. You have bondholders who are making money off the bonds that they would issue and they think that, you know, they have lost that Public Confidence and if it could become sort of something that is customer owned and not traded on wall street that you would have more money to reinvest in the system and you might be able to rebuild that confidence. And to spend money on maintenance and because you need to make the shareholders happy . And just the distrust that we would have for anthe co at this point. Which is very widespread. It is one of the few non partisan issues that you can see that we have seen over and over again, you know, starting with the isenergy cr20 years ago, up to the san bruno explosion in 2010s through the wildfiand a sense that safety is not in that culture t s company and it is something dramatic that needs to change. Any kind of model for this in california or elsewhere . Absolutely. There are publicly owned utilities in every state of the nation including in california about 20 of our power right now that will comefrom the governmentowned utilities. Like smud . Or paloalto and so it is not a radical experiment, but it is enat hato keep their lights on every day. Hct much dissatisn is there with those public is there more confidence you would say . Yes, absolutely. And it is just that fact that they are eysafer, re more reliable, cleaner, and they are cheaper. Now they are not perfect and there are always problems with n the insider shenanin any systems. So you have to get it right, you have to make sure that people are not financially conflicted. But the public power is power that is cheaper, better, quicker, clean. We did ask for a reaction to what the mayors letter said. Part reads that we will share the governors focus on reducing the wildfire risk and share the same goal of fairly resolving the wildfire claims and exiting the chapter 11 process as quickly as possible. Kind of a vanilla statement i would say. Not too much. I think pg e at thispoint is trying to keep their heads above water and to see how to put forth that Restructuring Plan that will be acceptableto Governor Newsom and other lawmakers. There are challenges to bringing this company in particular public, whether th is a coop, essentially only meaning rate payers in the service area, the bigger government takeover, as they would really mean the taxpayers d the entirestate, even those who are not impeaching one of those is we still dont know the total cost of the last few years of thwildfires. Now that would be transferred to all of us. we are paying for it any way and i do think that there are some questions about that. In loretta, d they wosay this week the total liability could be Something Like 6 billion. Thats lot of money, but if you are spreing it out, getting maybe th loans, as the public entity, maybe you uld get a better rate, for example, than you could from bondholders . You could do that nd take the profin the system and plow it had back either to y the victims, workers, or to improve safety. What we know is th they have once over and over and over again done the wrong thing. Their Corporate Culture is one of corporate negligence, cutting corners. California just simp could not afford to allow them to remain a private utility e wh they would cut the corners, where they are always looking for the profit and not for safety or reliability. One of the thnegs gavin om said and i will ask you about this has been in his words cozy th the utilities over the past couple of decades. What are your thoughts atabout certain that period under michael brown, you know, that he did not get reappointed. He chose to go away. Is that a fair criticism . I think it s changed the last few years to some extent. You knowthat we saw slews of emails in that san bruno case, where he was d being wined dined and where they were gun shoppingor the favorable Administrative Law structure. And it was very i mean theres no question that it was a culture of cozineat best. But i do think Michael Picker who Jerry R Brown appointed af pb left did try to change that. I think theres a lot criticism for regulatrs to go around and that we asked him to do a lot and that safety was not necessarily the main charge it always should be, of course, but it wasnt to the extent. I think you could ask that question why didnt both pg e and cpuc see this wildfire Climate Crisis coming. I think we dont knw yet. Well, first of all do you think thats a fair criticism of the puc . Yes, absolutely. They were complicit. When i s there we were a watchdog. And the very first thing i did to order pg e to trim their trees and we would find them for cutting corners on maintenance and safety. It is truefor the last 15 years the puc has beencooped and not concerned about safety. Now we were and enwhat ha instead of trimming the trees and doing the right things, pg e, 15 years ago, they chose bankruptcy to get out from under californias control. And now remember they chose and we are seeing San Francisco has been flirting with municipal powers for a long time and mayor london breed was not one that signed that letter and they would set off. D how is it that those bears are proposing others than what San Francisco is talking about . On the basis, the idea is taking away sort of the grid and the Delivery System from pg e. And making it either a coop oro rnment entity, arguably similar things. I think the challenge for San Francisco is that taking away the San Francisco part of the grid doesnt realdress the underlining problems. But we are talking about our rural areas, where th transmission lines, they have been kept and where there are tree issues and they have t started in urban areas. So i will have a hard time believing that regulators are even going to allow San Francisco to take over and if there is not a broader Restructuring Plan that could really change the dynamics, leavg everyone outside the urban area. And now you need to pay te ion to politics, i know as they would now own this, whether or not they ke that. And they do. What are the risks for him politically in any of these options that hes confronted both the go has a whole will need to get that right. They could not allow them t get it whereon yet again. Its bad for our economy and bad for our business and bad for our family. Ret the question here is not is it technically possible or i iteven financially possible . And because it is. Now todays market cap of pg e is 3. 2 billion. Thats purchasable if you want to go and purchase their stock and the huge question is politically possible . And will the elected politicians do the right thing here. And that i would applaud mayor lccardo answering about that question and for california and not whats best for pg e. All right, political mind fields. Yesi think Governor Newsom says there is no secret that they would have broad ambitions for Northern California and this really is tional attention. Attracting if they could fix it, it is a huge win. If they cant, it could beenthe of the political career. And that is who you would work for. Now tell them a little bit about that. Im sorry to bng that up in the end. A cautionary tale. Exactly. All right, yothank u both oury much. Thank who owns Silicon Valley . Thats the question d asby a team of reporters from kqed, the mercury news, and several other bay area news outlets. The yearlong collaboration investigated top landowners of the region. A role in a housin crisis that led to sky high rents and hours long commutes. Among the findin universitys Property Holdings are worth nearly 20 billion. Thats more than google, apple, and intel combined. And alsoapthis week e pledged 2. 5 billion to combat the housing crisis, saying omit is, tted to being a part of the solution. Joining me now is rachel myro, Senior Editor of the Silicon Valley news desk. Hi, rachel. Hi, scott. What were you setting out to do in this yearlong project . We wanted to find out who were the big players. How do you find that out from a data perspective . You start with the fiassessors. One of the wonderful things about having a multinewsron collaborats we were able to have a team of data reporters from the mercury news, nbc bay area. Going into this data, which is prty messy, line by line, cleaning it up, figuring out who owns the mt land. And also who owns the mo. Valuable la and so obviously Stanford University is thll800pound gohere by far. And how did they acire so much land . Well it all started with leland stanford, the dad of leland jr. Who, of course, whom the university is named after. He was one of the original big four railrd barrens, robert from the guilded age. D addition to purchasing a beautiful knob hill mansion in San Francisco, he also developed the Country Estate that grew and grew overtome the point where finally took over that land. Thats a loof land. Stanford has what i would say a more benign