Interview Transcript: Joaquín Torres

This interview is part of our February 2022 election guide. The Public Press and “Civic” are only publishing highlights from interviews with candidates on our audio platforms, but we are making extended transcripts available to add context. These transcripts have been edited for clarity.  

Sylvie Sturm   

Can you recap for me? How has your experience been in your very first election campaign that you’ve been going through? 

Joaquín Torres   

It’s been it’s been pretty amazing to be a first-time citywide candidate and being able to reconnect with so many communities, so many neighborhoods, so many old friends who I’ve been serving in one role or another throughout my time since I started public service back in December of 2009. 

Sylvie Sturm   

Why are you running for this office in particular? 

Joaquín Torres   

Well, I I’ve been looking for another way to serve. I started my career in public service and neighborhood services and really tried to learn the foundation of local government city service work from that perspective of: What is the front desk like of constituent services?

Interview transcript: Faauuga Moliga

This is a transcript of an interview with “Civic” host Laura Wenus and school board member Faauga Moliga, part of our February 2022 nonpartisan election guide. Though “Civic” will broadcast only nine minutes of each commissioner’s interview to give each equal airtime on our program, we are making transcripts of the full conversations available. These transcripts have been edited for clarity.  

Faauuga Moliga is a Samoan Pacific Islander who arrived in San Francisco when he was a year old and grew up in public housing. As a member of the San Francisco Board of Education, he is the first Pacific Islander to hold an elected seat in the city. He was elected in November 2018. 

Laura Wenus   

So, at the time of this recording, San Francisco is seeing a huge spike in coronavirus cases.

Interview transcript: Gabriela López

This is a transcript of an interview with “Civic” host Laura Wenus and school board member Gabriela López, part of our February 2022 nonpartisan election guide.Though “Civic” will broadcast only nine minutes of each commissioner’s interview to give each equal airtime on our program, we are making transcripts of the full conversations available. These transcripts have been edited for clarity.    

Gabriela López was elected as a member of San Francisco’s Board of Education in November 2018. She is an elementary school teacher for bilingual fourth- and fifth-grade students and an adjunct instructor for students seeking their master’s degrees in education or their teacher credentials. 

Laura Wenus    

So, a lot of the issues that we are seeing today, I think are worth talking about, because they’re likely to persist. For example, we are in a massive spike of COVID cases right now. I think we’re still seeing a seven-day average of case rates of more than 1,000 cases a day, which is record-breaking.

Interview transcript: Alison Collins

This is a transcript of an interview with “Civic” host Laura Wenus and school board member Alison Collins, part of our February 2022 nonpartisan election guide.Though “Civic” will broadcast only nine minutes of each commissioner’s interview to give each equal airtime on our program, we are making transcripts of the full conversations available. These transcripts have been edited for clarity.  

Alison Collins was elected to the Board of Education in November 2018.  

Laura Wenus 

I’ve been asking everybody about the coronavirus situation, just because of this huge record-breaking spike in cases that we just saw, it seems that wave has thankfully crested. But it does seem that we haven’t seen the end of COVID in general, and that it is inevitably going to affect school safety practices.

a ride-hailing car displays Uber and Lyft logos

Utilities Agency Admits More Problems in Tracking Ride-Hailing Assaults

The state agency responsible for ensuring that rides with Uber and Lyft are safe has acknowledged that it failed to consistently monitor passenger complaints about rapes and assaults for years. 

The California Public Utilities Commission confirmed in an unpublicized ruling that it had let the ride-hailing giants use varying definitions of sexual assault and harassment in their mandatory reports to the agency since at least 2017. » Read more

State Not on Track to Pay Most SF Rent Assistance Before Eviction Protections Expire

As much as two-thirds of the rent assistance requested in San Francisco because of COVID-19 hardships will fail to reach tenants in time to protect them from eviction this spring if current trends continue, Public Press projections show.

The government received rent-relief requests faster than it issued payments during the five months the Public Press tracked, and $187 million in applications from thousands of residents still await approval. » Read more

A street view of a complex of three-story apartment buildings.

How Build Back Better Bill’s Failure Could Hurt SF’s Most Vulnerable

San Francisco could lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars for rental aid and affordable housing construction with the expected collapse of the Build Back Better social spending and infrastructure bill.

The White House touted the $1.75 trillion spending package as having the “single largest and most comprehensive investment in affordable housing in history,” with $150 billion in housing assistance for low-income tenants. » Read more

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Rebuffed Tenant Group Weighs Whether to Continue ‘Debt Strike’

The company generally recognized as San Francisco’s largest landlord has rejected demands by more than 1,200 tenants to help all the company’s renters recover from COVID-19 hardships.

“This feels like a dead end to me, and I don’t want it be,” said Brad Hirn, lead organizer at the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco who has been helping the Veritas Tenants Association attempt to negotiate with the company. » Read more