Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:02] I’m Ericka Cruz Guevarra and welcome to The Bay local news to keep you rooted and welcome to our monthly news roundup where me and the rest of the Bay team talk about some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. I’m joined by senior editor Alan Montecillo. Hey Alan.
Alan Montecillo [00:00:20] Hello.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:21] And producer Jessica Kariisa.
Jessica Kariisa [00:00:23] Hey Ericka.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:00:25] I feel like we’ve been talking about this a little bit in our little Bay office lately, but I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately from people in my life about how we’re doing over here at KQED, because as maybe not everyone knows, but House Republicans have accused NPR and PBS of bias and have been threatening to pull back on federal funding for these. public media organizations of which we are connected to. I mean, Jessica, have you been getting these questions too?
Jessica Kariisa [00:01:01] Oh, every single time I meet someone and I tell them where I work, that’s the first thing that they ask me. How are we?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:09] Yeah. How are we, Alan?
Alan Montecillo [00:01:11] Oh, what a question that is. How are we? Our day-to-day work, I should say, is pretty much the same. Obviously, this is a very intense time. We’re taping this a day after there was a hearing led by Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who many people know is the staunch supporter of President Trump denies that he lost the 2020 election, regularly traffics in conspiracy theories, in which the CEOs of NPR and PBS were called to testify. And as many people probably know, the Trump administration and the Republican Party is interested in pulling federal funding from public media. So that was the context. And at that hearing, Representative Greene pulled no punches when talking about NPR and PBS. And many of her Republican colleagues did the same.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene [00:02:00] For far too long, federal taxpayers have been forced to fund biased news. So now it’s up to Congress to determine if Americans are going to continue to provide her and the organization that put her in charge with taxpayer funds to continue to pursue their progressive or rather communist agenda.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:23] How exactly, I guess, do you explain to the people in your life, Alan, how this is all affecting us here at KQED?
Alan Montecillo [00:02:31] Every year, there is a nonprofit called the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that was created in 1967 that gets about $500 million per year from the federal government. That by the way, pencils out to about $1.50 per person per year. That’s actually much less than other Western democracies. By contrast, the UK spends about $100 per person, per year on the BBC. And the majority of that money goes not directly to NPR and PBS, which are national organizations, but to local broadcasting stations throughout the country, radio and TV, of which KQED is a part. So for us, you know, federal funding makes up about 7% of our budget. That’s a significant chunk of KQED’s operating budget, but I will note that in rural areas for smaller stations, that percentage is actually quite a lot more. So zeroing out that funding would actually disproportionately hurt smaller stations in more rural areas. I will note too often more conservative areas.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:32] And I mean, this is all sort of just one piece of these sort of larger challenges I feel like we’re seeing to just First Amendment and free speech right now and in the second Trump administration.
Alan Montecillo [00:03:45] Yeah, and I want to be clear. Debates over public funding for NPR and PBS aren’t new. There’s a clip from the presidential debate in 2012 where Mitt Romney says, it’s time to cut funding to PBS. It should stand on its own feet.
Mitt Romney [00:03:58] I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m gonna stop other things. I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not gonna keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for.
Alan Montecillo [00:04:10] Republicans have long accused public media, and really most mainstream media, of having a liberal bias. So I think it’s one thing to have a debate over what funding should go where, and certainly those of us in public media would say this would hurt many, many people. But it is also happening in a larger context in which this White House and the ruling party in government is very aggressively attacking the people who it sees as its enemies. whether it’s journalists, whether it is legal residents protesting against the war in Gaza, and really anyone who is perceived to be an enemy of President Trump and his administration.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:58] All right, well, when we come back, we’re going to get right into the local news stories that Al and Jessica and I have been following this month. Stay with us.
[00:05:18] And welcome back to The Bay’s Monthly News Roundup, where we talk about some of the other stories we’ve been following this month, and producer Jessica Kariisa, I wanna start with you. What have you been following in this month?
Jessica Kariisa [00:05:28] Yeah, so I’ve been following a story out of San Rafael, and this was reported by Matthew Green for KQED. And basically, there was a school board meeting earlier this month, a trustee on the board named Mark Korner planned to introduce a measure called, quote, recognition of the essential role and needs of young men in society. Basically it was about just that, recognizing and supporting young men, but it had this extra part which was very critical of the term toxic masculinity, saying that the language implies that young men need to be fixed by women and it undermines mutual respect and equality. And I mentioned at the top that it was introduced and not voted on because it wasn’t voted on. he actually pulled. the measure before the vote because there was a lot of backlash.
Alan Montecillo [00:06:31] So this school board member, Mark Koerner, why did he want to introduce this measure? And just to be clear, this wouldn’t have changed any policies, right? It was more about proclaiming, you know, making a statement.
Jessica Kariisa [00:06:44] Right, right, making a statement, starting a discussion. He said that, you know, he was really, had been thinking a lot about, you know, how boys have a lower rate of academic achievement, higher rates of suicide, and mental health issues, and said that on average, the high school graduation rate for boys is lower than that for girls. But boys are also not as encouraged to speak up about their mental health issues. And so he really just wanted to introduce this as a way to maybe start addressing some of that disparity.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:16] You mentioned backlash, I think I could imagine what some of that backlash was maybe about, but what exactly were people up in arms about in terms of this proposal of his and why did it ultimately, I guess, not go to a vote?
Jessica Kariisa [00:07:33] Right. So first of all, it was really bad timing. It was introduced during Women’s History Month. Not great timing. But I think for a lot of people, it just felt like maybe some parallels or some trickle-down effect to some of the rhetoric that we’re seeing at the federal level from JD Vance and from President Trump. Just this sort of quote anti-woke kind of rhetoric. This idea that the movement for gender equality has gone too far to the point where men are being alienated. So the school board meeting, you know, usually people don’t really attend these, just a handful of people, but you know there were almost a hundred people that attended this meeting, mostly parents, mostly moms, to voice their concerns about this. And the reactions ranged from, you now, everything from this is offensive, this is embarrassing, it’s tone deaf. The president of the San Rafael Federation of Teachers, Morgan Agnew, also made a statement basically saying that. You know, we have lots of programs that are targeted to young men and that introducing something like this is just, it doesn’t make a lot of sense and it’s polarizing.
Alan Montecillo [00:08:53] I mean, there’s a lot to talk about actually with achievement of boys in schools and young men and the development of young men. It seems like it’s really critiquing the phrase toxic masculinity that really set off this backlash.
Jessica Kariisa [00:09:07] Right. Yeah, it’s a charged term, you know, and it’s something that clearly from this situation, people are interpreting in different ways. And you know I think that, you know, there probably is room for a discussion about these disparities and, you know, Koerner did say that he’s still passionate about this issue and maybe this was not the right way to do it, but he’s happy to, you, know, pass it off to someone else to deal with. But I think, yeah, it’s when you, it’s, when you latch onto terms like those that people really feel a certain type of way because for them they might be associating it with something really damaging.
Alan Montecillo [00:09:45] Oh, what a mess.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:50] All right, Jessica, well thank you so much. Thank you. And up next is my story that I’ve been following, which is an update on the fate of the San Jose Berryessa Flea Market, which is a huge cultural institution in San Jose that we’ve been falling very closely, Alan, here on the show. And basically, the headline is, vendors are still looking for a permanent site for La Pulga and have hit another roadblock. Basically, a number of years ago, the owners of the flea market, the barriers of flea market, wanted to basically redevelop that site for housing because of this new BART station. That has always essentially meant the end of the flee market as people knew it in San Jose, but also everyone knew that it would be such a huge blow. And so there was this really big question hanging over which is Where do we put it? Where can we move this huge flea market? These vendors have really eyed this site, known as the Singleton site, which is this 90 acre former landfill. Many saw it as sort of the best option because of its proximity to the freeway and these residential neighborhoods. And it’s interesting because they are not allowed to move forward with this site because of actually a state law. that requires this land that they’re eyeing to be prioritized for affordable housing.
Jessica Kariisa [00:11:32] So the vendors found this site, but it’s been, I guess, zoned for affordable housing via state law. Could you talk a little bit more about how that?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:11:43] that happen? Yeah so it turns out there’s this law called the California Surplus Land Act which requires local governments like City of San Jose to give affordable housing developers basically like the first crack at public parcels that are up for sale. Public parcels like this 90 acre former landfill that these vendors would like to use for a flea market. Of course, you know, as we all know, in California, one of the challenges in building affordable housing is finding the land that is suitable to build housing on and actually Newsom took several actions in 2019 to make state and local public lands available for affordable housing because of this problem. And now San Jose officials are saying that they’re they’re wanting to seek an exemption. from this land act based on the sort of economic benefits that would come from obviously putting nearly 500 vendors here and allowing them to sell their goods and keep this flea market going. And they need to be able to sort of do that before the vendors are asked to leave their current location next year.
Alan Montecillo [00:13:04] So is that exemption, is that basically the best hope for these vendors to survive?
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:10] It’s either that or they find another place to put 450 vendors, which has obviously already been the challenge here. At least one person cited by the San Jose Spotlight says that initial indications from the State Department indicate that it’s not inclined to exempt this site, but conversations are ongoing.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:42] All right, and last but not least, senior editor Alan Montecillo, you got a cool story you’ve been following.
Alan Montecillo [00:13:50] Yeah. So I wanted to spotlight an event coming up this Saturday, April 5th in San Francisco. It’s called the Eid Night Market Street Fair, coming to the Tenderloin on Saturday, April 5, running from noon to five.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:05] Talk a little bit about why this is happening in the Tenderloin.
Alan Montecillo [00:14:10] There’s actually been a block party to celebrate Eid in the Tenderloin every year. What happened was, after the new supervisor, Bilal Mahmood, was elected in November, organizers of this block party asked him, hey, can we turn this block-party event that happens every year, you know, takes place a week after the end of Ramadan, can make it a bigger thing? Can we make it sort of a bigger festival-style thing? Can we get sponsors, community partnerships? Can we make sure it’s very kid friendly? So there’s been a block party every year, but this sort of larger iteration of it is a new thing.
Jessica Kariisa [00:14:45] What will be there for someone who wants to go out?
Alan Montecillo [00:14:50] So there will be a lot of food from local restaurants and vendors, games, activities. There will be live music performance from a Palestinian-American rapper, MC Abdul. There’s some collaboration too with the Golden State Warriors. Some of the teams, academy coaches will be there to play basketball with some of the kids there. I think one thing that local organizers have talked about is that it’s important to them that it is a kid-friendly event. I guess it’s called the Eid Night Market Street Fair, but it’s really during the day, it’s from 12 to five.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:15:19] They’ve been having this street festival every year, but why make it a bigger thing this year?
