San Francisco City Insider
132 episodes - English - Latest episode: over 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 72 ratingsThis 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.
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Episodes
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on homelessness
November 02, 2018 11:00 - 20 minutesMarc Benioff has been making headlines for his support of Prop. C to tax big businesses to raise money for homeless services — and for his scolding of other San Francisco CEOs for not doing the same. Heather Knight talked to him on the 61st story of the new Salesforce Tower, where you’re looking down on the top of the TransAmerica Pyramid and pretty much everything else in the Bay Area. He talked about why he backs Prop. C, why he’s taking other billionaires to task so publicly and how his gr...
San Francisco Fire Chief hangs up her helmet
October 22, 2018 22:28 - 13 minutesSan Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White is the first woman to ever hold the job and the longest serving big city fire chief in the country. After nearly 15 years on the job, she has a big announcement: she's ready to hang up her helmet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Ten Candidate Shamann Walton
October 18, 2018 04:43 - 20 minutesSan Francisco District Ten Candidate Shamann Walton, a former school board president, has a lot of support from San Francisco and California political veterans. He also has a long history of work in the neighborhood. But some political observers have questioned how voters will respond to his track record. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Ten Candidate Tony Kelly
October 18, 2018 04:34 - 31 minutesSan Francisco District Ten Candidate Tony Kelly, the current president of the Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association, is a longtime neighborhood activist who has run for the seat twice before. He considers himself a democratic socialist -- but the question is how voters will respond to that label. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Ten Candidate Theo Ellington
October 18, 2018 04:27 - 24 minutesSan Francisco District Ten Candidate Theo Ellington, the current board president for the Bayview opera house, grew up in the Bayview and said his top three priorities would be "affordable housing, affordable housing and affordable housing." Ellington is the youngest candidate in this race, and the question some voters have about Theo is if he has enough experience to run a district. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Six Candidate Christine Johnson
October 17, 2018 00:08 - 22 minutesSan Francisco District Six Candidate Christine Johnson is a former planning commissioner with an engineering degree. A self-described a policy wonk, she is the only one in the race with experience working in a city department. But, so far, her campaign has failed to get as much momentum as her competitors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Six Candidate Sonja Trauss
October 16, 2018 23:58 - 23 minutesSan Francisco District Six Candidate Sonja Trauss is a prominent housing activist who started the YIMBY movement and is running to bring a pro-housing voice to the Board of Supervisors. Trauss is often described as tenacious, outspoken and blunt. The question with her is how those qualities will translate into the board's chambers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Six Candidate Matt Haney
October 16, 2018 21:19 - 22 minutesMatt Haney is a school board member and a progressive candidate running for a district long held by supervisors of similar political stripes. He's running to create more shelter beds in District Six and to get the streets cleaned up. But he's up against two pro-housing moderates running a one-two ranked-choice voting strategy, and both have been endorsed by the mayor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Four candidate Trevor McNeil
October 11, 2018 00:32 - 25 minutesSan Francisco District Four candidate Trevor McNeil, a public school teacher, is the only candidate in the District Four race who would support a Navigation Center in the district. He's picked up a smattering of endorsements, but whether he can get enough traction before November remains an open question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Four candidate Gordon Mar
October 11, 2018 00:31 - 16 minutesSan Francisco District Four candidate Gordon Mar is a longtime labor activist in the city, who has a broad coalition of support from the building and labor and trade groups. But can this progressive candidate who sees housing opportunities on the westside win over a district long held by moderates? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Four candidate Jessica Ho
October 10, 2018 15:00 - 18 minutesSince she swept into the political scene earlier this year as a legislative aide for outgoing Supervisor Katy Tang, SF District Four Candidate Jessica Ho has picked up several big-name endorsements, from Mayor London Breed to state Sen. Scott Weiner. But her race to represent District Four has raised eyebrows. Can she win in a sector of the city where name recognition really counts? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Two Candidate Schuyler Hudak
October 10, 2018 14:00 - 24 minutesA political newcomer, San Francisco District Two Candidate Schuyler Hudak has centered her campaign around increasing services for the mentally ill on the city's streets. But she faces stiff opposition. Can her grassroots campaign stand up against her competitors? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Two Candidate Catherine Stefani
October 10, 2018 13:30 - 22 minutesThe SF Chronicle sits down with District Two Candidate Catherine Stefani -- Stefani has been District Two's incumbent since her appointment by former Mayor Mark Farrell. Stefani wants to make San Francisco safer and more accommodating for families. She recounts what she's accomplished so far in office, and what she still wants to achieve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF District Two Candidate Nick Josefowitz
October 10, 2018 13:00 - 23 minutesSan Francisco District Two Candidate Nick Josefowitz, a BART director, has pledged to reform City Hall by tackling the city's homelessness and affordability crises. To win the District Two seat, Josefowitz has signaled a willingness to splash some serious money around: He's spent more than half a million dollars on the campaign. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The front lines of San Francisco's mental health crisis
October 05, 2018 05:24 - 24 minutesPaul Linde, a doctor who worked in the psychiatric emergency room of San Francisco General Hospital for 24 years. He talks about why the city's mental health system is so broken and what it would take to fix it - namely, far more mental health treatment beds so there's somewhere for mentally ill homeless people to go besides the E.R. or our sidewalks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Debunking climate change deniers
September 11, 2018 00:00 - 30 minutesWhen Heather Knight tweeted about the link between California's dreadful wildfire season and climate change, the deniers responded. She reads their tweets to Kevin Drew of the San Francisco Department of the Environment and Jared Blumenfeld, formerly of the Environmental Protection Agency, to get their response — and the facts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Farewell to Chief of Staff Jason Elliott
August 31, 2018 21:15 - 20 minutesFarewell to a four-time chief of staff: Jason Elliott, who served Mayors Ed Lee, London Breed, Mark Farrell and London Breed again, has just departed Room 200 to join Gavin Newsom’s campaign for governor. Elliott opens up about his last day working with Lee and that terrible December night his boss died. He talks about the biggest piece of city government that’s broken, and what he always makes sure to squeeze into his day with his wife, the city’s cannabis chief. (No, it's not pot.) Learn mo...
SF District Eight Supervisor Rafael Mandelman
August 20, 2018 17:33 - 29 minutesOne of San Francisco's newest supervisors sits down with Chronicle columnist Heather Knight and City Hall reporter Trisha Thadani to talk about what it will take to tackle the crisis of untreated mental illness on the city's streets, his thoughts on the proposed ban on office cafeterias and where he goes for the city's best burrito. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Emerge founder Andrea Dew Steele
August 20, 2018 17:17 - 22 minutesBack in 2002, Andrea Dew Steele helped her friend, Kamala Harris, start a campaign for San Francisco District Attorney. Sixteen years later, Harris is a U.S. Senator with her eye on the White House and Steele’s Emerge, a training ground for women in politics, is active in 24 states. We’re talking about why more women are running for office during the Trump era, her predictions for the mid-term elections and what she’d like to see happen to Donald Trump after 2020. Learn more about your ad cho...
The story behind San Francisco's "Invisible Men"
July 30, 2018 19:00 - 13 minutesPeople walking to City Hall will be surprised to see 40 identical sculptures, each weighing more than 300 pounds, standing like soldiers just out front. Artist Zak Ove, an Englishman who’s the first black person to have art displayed in the plaza, explains the work’s meaning, how it’s a counterpoint to the controversial Pioneer Monument and how it relates to San Francisco’s heartbreaking homeless problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
San Francisco's homeless problem, explained
June 23, 2018 16:00 - 36 minutesSan Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight talks with Jeff Kositsky, director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing, about why the city’s homeless problem doesn’t seem to get much better despite city officials spending more than $300 million a year to solve it. Hint: For every 50 people moved off the streets, 150 take their place. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Catching up with SF Mayor-elect London Breed
June 22, 2018 19:23 - 22 minutesNow that she's clinched the race for the city's top job, San Francisco Mayor-elect London Breed is getting ready to bear down on the city's most pressing problems. After her July 11 inauguration, Breed plans to begin immediately working on solutions to curb homelessness, treat the mentally ill roaming the city's streets and — possibly — opening the country's first safe injection site. And with her job only secured until 2020, she'll have to work fast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...
San Francisco has a new mayor: London Breed
June 13, 2018 21:09 - 15 minutesThe S.F. mayor's race has finally come to an end, and London Breed will be the first African American woman to be elected to the city's highest office. Former state Sen. Mark Leno conceded defeat after more than a week of suspense. Listen in as The Chronicle politics team breaks down the election results. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2018 California Primary Election recap
June 06, 2018 10:09 - 29 minutesIn a special election night podcast, the San Francisco Chronicle politics team breaks down the 2018 California primary. Listen in as John Diaz, Heather Knight, Joe Garofoli, Dominic Fracassa and John Wildermuth analyze results from San Francisco, Bay Area and California races. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Understanding SF's opioid epidemic with Dr. Phillip Coffin
May 20, 2018 07:30 - 27 minutesSan Franciscans have a lot of questions about the blatant, open-air injection drug use occurring on our sidewalks. Dr. Phillip Coffin, director of substance use research for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, has answers. In an interview with Chronicle columnist Heather Knight, Coffin explains why the opioid epidemic has gotten so bad, the logic behind the city’s needle exchange program and what safe injection sites are really like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho...
Catching up with SF Mayor Mark Farrell
May 17, 2018 07:30 - 20 minutesMayor Mark Farrell has just a few weeks left in office, but says he’s determined to keep the “pedal to the metal” in accomplishing real change for San Francisco before his time in Room 200 is up. In an interview with Chronicle columnist Heather Knight, Farrell says he might order the clearing of additional tent camps as he was pleased with the result the Mission, though he admitted the city hasn’t tracked what happened to the individuals who were cleared out. Learn more about your ad choices....
Beach Blanket Babylon in the age of President Trump
April 19, 2018 17:46 - 18 minutesWe talk with with Jo Schuman Silver, writer and producer of Beach Blanket Babylon, the silly, only-in-San Francisco stage production that’s celebrating its 45th anniversary. While President Donald Trump has been terrible for San Francisco, he’s been great for the show, reinvigorating the production that was a little boring in the Obama years. Silver talks about how she keeps up with the ever-changing news and how she keeps her production fresh when the White House happenings are flying fast a...
London Breed on the SF mayor's race
April 05, 2018 05:17 - 31 minutesIn The Chronicle's final installment of our mayoral profiles, we talk with London Breed, president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. She's gone from growing up as a poor kid in the city's Western Addition to ascending to the upper echelons of civic power in the city. Now, she has her sight's set on the mayor's office. She served as acting mayor following the death of Ed Lee, until her colleagues booted her from office just six weeks later. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit mega...
San Francisco Police Chief Bill Scott
April 02, 2018 22:21 - 23 minutesThere were more than 31,000 reports of car break-ins in San Francisco in 2017, but police were only able to make arrests in 1.7 percent of cases. Police Chief Bill Scott explains to columnist Heather Knight why these crimes are so hard to tackle, and also discusses how law enforcement is responding to two other city scourges: injection drug use and homeless tent encampments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
San Francisco mayoral candidate Angela Alioto
March 29, 2018 05:21 - 19 minutesAngela Alioto is banking on her years of experience in San Francisco politics to separate her from the pack of mayoral hopefuls in the June 5 election. Her campaign has focused on her pledges to break through the despondency of the city’s homelessness crisis, clean up the city’s streets and crack down on street crime. In this episode, we’ll get to know Angela better and her quest to revitalize San Francisco’s soul. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
SF mayoral candidate interview with Supervisor Jane Kim
March 21, 2018 07:11 - 15 minutesSan Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim is known for big, bold ideas, only a fraction of which become reality at City Hall. But she’s centering her mayoral campaign on a very practical policy initiative: cleaning the city’s notoriously dirty streets. The wonky Stanford graduate is clearly smart, driven and committed, and points to her affordable housing credentials and her proposal of free child care as examples of how a progressive would run city hall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megap...
SF mayoral candidate interview with Mark Leno
March 15, 2018 13:44 - 25 minutesProgressive mayoral candidate Mark Leno has centered his campaign on a promise to "shake up City Hall." But can a veteran lawmaker like Leno, who served 14 years in the state Assembly and Senate as well as a stint as a city supervisor, convince voters that he's a true agent of change? In this inaugural episode of the "On San Francisco" podcast, we'll get to know Leno better -- from his vision for San Francisco to where he likes to go for a drink. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...