today on getting answers. the battle to end preferential admissions for the children of alumni and donors is being waged on two new fronts. a state bill and a new organization founded by stanford students themselves. california tourism folks are

rolling out the red carpet for a chinese influencer. as our media partner, the san francisco standard shares a new campaign to bring back foreign visitors. but first, a potential new solution to the housing crisis in berkeley. the city is poised to become the first in california to let residents sell their adus, or accessory dwelling units, as condos. you're watching. getting answers. i'm kristen sze. thanks for joining us. with california facing a severe housing crisis, the city of berkeley is ready to jump on a new law that allows something that was previously banned selling adus or accessory dwelling units separately from the main house. abc seven news reporter lena howland talked to berkeley officials and other stakeholders, and she'll have more on this on the 4:00 news. but joining us live now to talk about his bill that started it all. state assemblyman phil ting, who represents san francisco and a portion of san mateo county. assemblyman ting, thanks for coming on the show.

>> thanks for having me, kristen. great to see you. >> good to see you. let's be clear. ab 1033, which took effect earlier this year, allows cities to decide right to opt in if they want to let homeowners sell their cottages or in-law units separately from the main house. right? >> that's right. yeah. so cities have to opt in. it doesn't allow that authority just for individual property owners. cities have to take that first action. >> okay. got it. what was your reason for introducing it in the first place? how did you see this helping with california's housing situation? >> well, one we've seen i've done a number of bills to help streamline the construction of adus, and it's one of the few bright spots in terms of housing construction since the adoption of many of my bills over the last 4 or 5 years, we've seen tens of thousands of adus being constructed all over the state, a significant number in los angeles as well. so again, it's very exciting to see these homes being built. the idea was because of these small cottage homes, we thought, what if they could be sold separately right

now, being a homeowner is so expensive. the median price home is over $1 million and many of the bay area counties, if you could buy a home for 3 or $400,000, wouldn't you? wouldn't you go do it? especially if it's a separate cottage? >> why is being able to own that unit so important versus being able to rent it? >> well, again, i think, home ownership is how you build wealth, how you build equity in your own life. it's a way that you get into the middle class. it's part of our california dream, it's a very key piece of it. and for some, you know, for many young people, it's an elusive part of the dream. we have so many young people who have great jobs coming out of college or as they enter the workforce, but they can't afford to buy a home because they don't have that down payment for that. over $1 million house. >> all right. so berkeley is now signaling that it's ready to adopt it. and san jose may be next. it will take a little time. but what do you think that will do a lot for affordable

homeownership opportunities in those cities in the bay area? >> well, i think it's a small piece of the puzzle, it's not as much as other affordable types of housing, but if you're looking at affordable housing, most of the affordable housing we built is rental housing in california. this is affordable home ownership, and quite often i could see initially many family members working with their children to buy, oftentimes you see family members helping their child buy their first home, what better way to get started than helping buy that? adu. and also, as families age, and you want to cash out of a home, this is a much better way to cash out of your house than to go get a loan , like reverse mortgage, which gives you, money out of your home, this is a much safer way to get equity. a much safer way to get cash. oh, yeah. >> i hadn't thought of that. that's great. what challenges do you anticipate, though, in terms of getting more cities on board? and what about challenges with homeowners associations in certain cities? >> we still have way too many

cities to fight, adus. who isn't just selling of adus, but really fight adus? and so those cities, i imagine, will still be slow to adopt. but we have so many cities that see adus as a piece of their housing puzzle. again, it's not everything, but again, with so many single family home lots built in california, adus are a great addition and a great piece of the puzzle that don't really heavily impact single family home neighborhoods. so this is a way that neighbors can, keep the neighborhood character, be able to rent a home or be able to sell a home or be able to, really, you know, provide extra housing for their families. >> okay. but if it sounds like it's going to benefit those on the lower end of the economic ladder the most, here's the problem, right? building adus in california in the bay area can be expensive, right, cheaper than homes, but still expensive. so are there any efforts, legislatively or otherwise, to make it cheaper? and easier, not right now, because it's still significantly cheaper than

building a single family home or building even a, you know, a condo within a complex, most adus could cost 200, $300,000. and when you look at even the units of affordable housing that we're building, there are upwards of, say, $1 million in san francisco. and so the price differential is still it's still much cheaper to build an adu right now than to build many other forms of housing. >> critics say allowing adu condos sales could lead to complications with property liens and lenders. do you have thoughts on that? >> yeah. absolutely not. i think that's a myth. this is no different than if you have a duplex and you do a condominium conversion and you do a lot split. it's a very it's a very simple process that we many people had to go through. i went through when i did my condo conversion in san francisco. so, there's many laws to protect that banks already know how to handle and do loans for condominiums. so it's really creating an adu and changing it into a condominium. >> all right. i know you talked about, you know, homeownership as one goal of this. right. but some worry that investors could

buy up those adu condos. right. and turn them into rental properties, what do you think about that? any ways to mitigate that? >> i find that very hard to believe because many people who are building the adus, they're building them in a home that they live in. and so i can't really imagine them allowing some faceless corporation to go buy that adu. they have that power because it's their property. the sellers have that ability, and i doubt that that's really going to happen on a mass scale. >> any other efforts to bring down housing costs in california and to, increase housing stock in our state? >> yeah. we've done so much at the state the last five, ten years, really making it easier to build housing, make it faster to build housing. that's really what you hear from developers that that the speed and the volatility, the unknown. you know, whether housing development can get held up for years is really one of the major factors that's holding it up. and so we've done a lot the state level to streamline and

make it easier. i think we can still do more. and we're looking at different ways to do more. but at the state level, we've already done so much to make it easier. one of the big challenges which is out of our hands is a high cost of borrowing. right now, the high interest rates are really hurting the development of housing, and hopefully the fed will eventually slowly lower those interest rates back. i think once the rates come back down a little bit, we're going to see more development. >> yeah we'll see. all right, again, our reporter lena howland will be doing a full report on this. she's in berkeley talking to different sides to this. and assemblyman ting, don't go away because i know you're joining our next conversation, so stick around. i'll let you get a drink of water here. meantime i'll tell folks what's coming up. up next, the fight to end legacy college admissions. it's taking on new life here in the bay area, in part due to assemblyman ting's bill and also a recent stanford grad is leading the charge on college campuses. more on that next.

out on campus, demanding their university and legacy admissions, that is, giving preferential treatment to the children of alumni and big donors. now, there are two efforts underway to end the practice. there's a bill in the legislature, and a stanford graduate has started a national organization to involve students in the fight. joining us live now to talk about it, the co-founder of class action and stanford graduate ryan lachowski. and assemblyman phil ting is back with us. welcome. assemblyman ting, your ab 1780 has passed out of committee. what would a ban specifically? >> it would ban the use of

legacy admissions, which is really defined as a preferential treatment for children of donors or children of alumni. uh- just to really say that you cannot have a separate category set aside for those types of students which right now, according to stanford, usc, santa clara, a number of other schools, they do that right, not uc, which you mentioned. >> but what would be the penalty under this bill for violation? >> the penalty would be equivalent to the amount of cal grant dollars that they get. and obviously that would vary yearly. and this is based on a very similar bill that the new york state legislature did. now, they did it for public universities, and we already don't have public universities practice legacy admissions. but we really took that same fine and are using it in this case as well. >> all right, ryan, i know you spoke out in support of assemblyman ting's bill. in fact, you did your whole master's thesis at stanford on

this topic of legacy admissions. and you founded an organization, class action, to fight it. why why, why is legacy admissions such a problem that needs correcting? >> yeah. thanks for having me, legacy admissions gives, an admissions boost to certain applicants over others solely on the basis of bloodline. this is something that even a child would look at and call unfair. and it is especially problematic when you look at the statistics, the stats, more, students come from the top 1% than the entire bottom 50% at stanford. and legacy admissions is one of the leading factors driving this disparity. moreover, legacy admits are far more likely to preference white students as opposed to students of color, which is a hugely problematic after the fall of race conscious admissions. let's talk about that advantage, right. >> give us more data on just how big it is. i read something on

your website, actually, about having the right parents is worth an extra. how many sat points and a boost? your admission chance at harvard by how much? >> yeah. so legacy admissions will boost your chances by approximately 3 to 4 times other applicants, which, as i said, is especially bad considering that these are students that are more likely to come from privilege. they're more likely to have that sat tutor. they're more likely to understand the inside game that is college admissions. >> and you said that this is more important now than ever. and i want to explain that and maybe just make that more clear to our viewers what you're talking about. in the wake of the lawsuit against harvard that led to the supreme court banning affirmative action, how are these two things related? >> that's right. so a colleges are no longer allowed to consider race in order to redress centuries of systemic

discrimination against people of color in this country. yet they are allowed to give admissions boosts to the children of alumni. they're allowed to give admissions boosts solely on the basis of bloodline. as i said, and why do we fight so hard to keep it? >> legacy? >> that's a good question. and that's a question that that i can't answer. it's a good question for administrators, we know that it's about as unpopular as a policy as you could get. if you look at polling, it's something like 75% of americans think it's unfair, 75% of college students, the vast majority of democrats and republicans, i think the only people who still think it's a good idea are administrators. >> well, i mean, there is always the money argument, right, that they need their alumni to donate their money so that they can grow their endowments so that they can provide more scholarships. at least that is one argument i have heard. but your thesis very interestingly, look not just at admissions but

also career funneling. that was eye opening to me. so explain what that is and how that plays into this whole thing. >> yeah. so we've been talking about admissions, which is sort of one side of what these colleges do, but they also have products and that's students, the, the majority of students at these schools, these elite quote unquote, schools go into big tech and finance and consulting. and that occurs at the expense of public service careers, which means that, you know, our many of our young leaders in this country aren't necessarily tackling these major problems that we're faced with, whether it's inequality or it's climate change. and you said that some of these students arrive at stanford and other universities like that, not necessarily thinking, i'm going to get into banking or consulting, but then they get seduced. >> how? >> yeah. that's right, something

like 4% of stanford students arrive on campus wanting to go into consulting. and then something like 20% of employed graduates end up in that industry. and there are a lot of cultural and institutional mechanisms that sort of result in this career funnel, one of them is, is this, this, this concept of corporate partnership programs. so, you know, a lot of these schools will actually partner with, major firms and allow those firms preferential access when recruiting students. and so who is going to be able to afford those partnership programs? it's the biggest firms . it's the big tech. it's the finance and it's the consulting, and that sort of creates this pipeline into those industries. >> so given that you think that is not serving our greatest interest as a society, what is class action? your group doing? >> yeah. class action is a group of student and alumni and

faculty organizers working to, work working to hold these schools to a sort of higher ethical standard, both on admissions and on career outcomes. >> so you're mobilizing. i mean, this is what's interesting to me is like, i'm wondering how many students and you said a lot support this, but these students are they're actually working to end something that their own children down the line could benefit from. >> that's exactly right. and i think that that's why it's such a powerful testament to why legacy admissions needs to go. you know, like if i decide to have children, they they could potentially, as it stands, get a big admissions boost at stanford. but that's not reflective of my values and it's not reflective of my peers values. therefore we want it gone. >> all right. well, assemblyman ting, the i'm going to bring you back into this conversation. i know you've been listening closely. the uc system does not give alumni or donors children any advantages like we talked

about. do you think you see admissions are fair again? >> i mean, that's, you know, admissions are very, very tough because you could admit, as many students as you could and all those students that you reject are probably very qualified as well. and so, again, admissions are very subjective, they're very challenging. and no matter who you take, the people you take are definitely qualified. but many of the people you reject, you could are easily qualified as well, that's a whole nother conversation, but your bill, this one is on the clock, right? i understand if it passes the assembly by the deadline in eight days, it will move to the senate. and if it passes there, then governor newsom can sign or veto it. you had a bill in 2019 fail. that was very, very similar. are you optimistic this time around? >> yeah, i am more optimistic, i think, you know, given exactly what ryan was talking about, we see i'm so proud of him and all the stanford students who've come up to talk about it. we

see, less pushback from many of the private schools, regarding this bill that from the pushback i got from about 4 or 5 years ago. so i am more optimistic. also, the data, i think, you know, ryan talked about his thesis. there's that report by opportunity insights, which is a group of harvard, harvard economists, talking about exactly what ryan said, that you are much more likely if you are coming from the top 1, to get in to those elite universities than you are if you're everybody else, and that really is just not fair. even even when all things being equal, meaning same gpa, same test score, same everything. >> well, assemblyman ting, thank you very much. and also ryan siskowski, the co-founder of class action, will be following your mobilization efforts. thank you both very much. >> thanks, chris. thank you. >> coming up next, visit california through the eyes of an influencer. the new campaign putting some of social media's top international stars to wo

visit. california has hired four top tier influencers to travel the state and promote it. in a new article out today. our media partner, the san francisco standard, follows the journey of one of those influencers known as super bowl. visit california paid for his recent trip to san francisco, and now he's showing off the city by the bay. joining us live now to talk all about this is the standards reporter han lee. hey, han. good to see you. >> hi, kristin. >> well, this is interesting. i mean, i know companies, tourism bureaus use social media, but now we're dipping into chinese social media. talk to us about that. >> yeah. so since the pandemic, we don't see a lot of tourists. right. but now since china is reopening and also we have we want a lot of chinese tourists to come back. right. so visit california and also san

francisco travel, this tourism focused nonprofit. they are thinking about some creative strategy, right, to attract maybe younger generation in china who are active on social media to come. that's why they recruit these chinese influencers to come and then post content about california and san francisco and hopefully more chinese younger generation will visit california and san francisco. >> right? right. okay. so this is the guy named super bowl, and i think you talked to him. he's got over a million followers, right? on the chinese social media platform weibo. so he's kind of a big deal. tell us about his trip here. >> yeah. so he's well known in china and also with a massive following on different platforms . right. and of course, he's invited by visit california to come to san francisco for about 3 or 4 days. and his trip is focusing on food and wine. and that's why san francisco traveled. the local agency recommended him. oh, you should go to you know, the north beach

neighborhood and probably a winery in soma. so that's where he goes. and after the trip, he posted a content in about two weeks ago. so that's that's what we see from this story and also from his social media. he explored the north beach neighborhood and also went to a fine dining news new restaurant in presidio called the leader. so a very amazing trip for him. >> i think i'm a little jealous. i wish i were an influencer. i see he took the napa valley wine train, but han, do we know yet what the reaction is like? i guess it's too soon to tell if people are booking trips to san francisco because of this, but what are the comments? >> yeah, so according to what i what i can see from the chinese social media, there's a lot of positive comments because, you know, he's showcasing san francisco's food and food and wine. you know, it's non-controversial, right? but as we all know, there are geopolitical issues that's outside of the control of local

tourism agencies. right. like visa or you know, something that's way bigger than what we can control. so we we're it's unclear for now how that will impact or attract how many tourists to come to california. >> yeah. i mean let's talk about that. right? i mean, since the pandemic, chinese tourism that's kind of stopped, you know, come to a stop. and just now they're starting to come back. so talk about what other efforts san francisco and california are really making to try to boost that back up. >> yeah. so i think one of the most prominent example will be maybe just physically went to china and visit, and she talked to a couple of airlines and hoping those airlines can establish more direct flight between san francisco and china. right. but for now, we are seeing probably a slight increase, but still, it's not as close as the pre-pandemic level for the flights. for the direct flights between the two regions. >> right. and of course, you know, if and when those pandas do get here to the san francisco zoo, perhaps that will have an

impact as well. chinese tourism. chinese tourists can spend a lot of money shopping here, right? >> yes. so that's why, you know, the local tourism agency really want them to come back. so china is considered a top overseas market for san francisco tourism and also for the whole california. and they're not only coming at the large number. right. they're spending power is also being highly valued. they're considering contributing probably over $1 billion per year prior to the pandemic season. but now they're slowly, slowly coming back. >> all right. we have about 30s besides alex bao here. what other things have you know they done visit california done recently to boost tourism to the state. >> yeah. so three other groups of influencers were also invited , but they are focusing more on like road trips, arts and culture. so they're more in southern california or driving on highway one. >> uh- han i think you should volunteer for one of those trips. i know you like to travel. you like to eat. you can

definitely write those posts. all right. thank you very much. really appreciate it. thank you. if you want to read han's story and more of the san francisco standard's other original reporting on

tonight, the fireworks inside the courtroom at donald trump's criminal trial. also breaking tonight, president biden exerting executive privilege, the controversy there. and tonight, the deadly house explosion. a father and daughter killed. a mother and son pulled from the wreckage. first tonight, donald trump's defense team taking aim at michael cohen. the