>> building a better bay area, -- >> everyday, we get answers for you and breed. we will talk to you about that and the other big news of the day. barbara lee has officially entered the race to replace senator dianne feinstein. also, our media partner, the san francisco standard, is shining a light on accountability and transparency within the san

francisco school district. nearly two dozen hidden employees accused ose misconduct have been allowed to resign quietly rather than be fired publicly. what is going on with that? damaging winds are punishing the bay area right now. we are seeing downed trees and power outages throughout the region. chec pacifica. the wind is pushing the water over some cars and into the parking lot. check out this scene on the peninsula. the wind was so strong, a tree came down and crushed a car along with a road in brentwood city. here is what it looked like in antioch this afternoon. palm trees just swaying there. this wind puppet really lived up to its name. look, bending over sideways in the strong breeze. joining us right now, spencer christian watching all of this.

these winds really kicked up in the last two or three hours. >> these winds are really damaging and potentially dangerous. here is a look at our current surface wind speeds and wind speeds and wind gusts. at sfo and as cne,iles per hour that certainly is going to mper fligh conditions landings, and dertures 46 mile power gusts. san mateo, 47 mile power gus all around the area, powerful and potentially damaging wind gusts. a wind advisory is in effect for virtually the entire bay area until 1:00 p.m. tomorrow. the weather department is constantly updating. i have not had a chance to add along the coastline where we have a high wind warning in effect right now so this is all in effect till 1:00 tomorrow afternoon. thus during this period of time

will range from 40 to 60 miles per hour. moving along, animation. this is the forecast animation starting at 5:00 this afternoon. we will have gusts on the coast near 60 miles per hour and near 50 miles per hour in other places away from the coastline going into the late-night hours. the winds will diminish a bit. not so much along the coastline. 6:00 tomorrow morning going into the daytime hours tomorrow, still very gusty and mainly along the coastline, but mid day or so, we expect the winds to diminish enough that the warnings and advisories can be taken away. meanwhile, you may have felt the cold, the chill in the air today. it is 14 degrees cooler in san francisco than it was at this time yesterday. all around the bay area, anywhere from 10 to nearly 20 degrees cooler right now than at this time yesterday. the high winds as we showed you in the earlier video have whipped up high surf.

high surf advisory is in effect until 4:00 tomorrow afternoon. large breakers up to 25 feet may develop, producing dangerous surfing and swimming conditions and dangerous rip currents and sneaker waves and one more thing to look at, the approaching storm is triggering all these winds. it's a level 1 storm right now on the exclusive impact scale. tomorrow through friday, scattered showers, cold, gusty conditions, and maybe even some snow here in the bay area. snow levels will drop to 1500 foot level or even lower. here is the forecast animation going into 6:00 p.m. tomorrow, scattered showers, cold showers. maybe even some snow in the highest elevations. wednesday evening and thursday morning, there is chcef snow later in the week not only in the peaks, but even down around 1000 feet so as you can see, we have got some very

active and unusual weather coming our way. kristen: usually, we say the calm before the storm. this is the chaos before the storm. i'm telling you, i was driving and my suv, higher profile. i was being whipped around like crazy and had to fight the steering wheel. spencer: i know how it feels. i got in earlier today before the strongest wind gusts developed. i did not feel the pull or push of the wind you were talking about but that is how it is now. over all of the overpasses and the bridges, if you are driving this afternoon, this evening, please exercise caution because those are where the strongest winds, unobstructed winds, can alter your driving path. kristen: good advice. thank you so much and we will see you later at 4:00. pg&e power outages starting popping up right as the winds started to pick up. this is the outage map. the yellow and orange dots started to grow just after noon

time especially on the peninsula . yellow means 50 to 500 customers out and orange means 500 to 5000 customers out so those are the larger ones. joining us live right now is pg&e spokesperson, demar sarkissian. how many customers are experiencing outages right now? >> in the bay area, the number is close to 65 or 70,000 cuomers at this time. ■th is the latest count just before this broadcast. the majority of the customers are in the south bay with 16,000 700 customers and also in the peninsula with aboiutcustomers . those are ctainly the hardest hit areas at this time. we all felt that when -- wind gusting and our meteorolo team has been predicting this, preparing for it as well. our predictions show we could see gusts of 40 to 55 miles per

hour due to this wind event and certainly more to come during the week with precipitation and low snow. kristen: most of these outages are related to downed trees. i assume you're crews are busy taking care of that. do you have enough crews? >> we do. we prepare for this so we make sure using technology that we have, we get the right number of crews in the right place at the right time so we really account for the areas that are going to be hardest hit. we make sure crews are brought in from other areas so that we have plenty of people standing by, ready to address any issues so you are right. vegetation can be a big part of this and debris. it's nojust vegetation that would be typically trimmed back. this can be healthy vegetation. that is a safe distance from our lines. it is so powerful. kristen: can i ask you how long

can people expect to be without power once an outage happens to them? >> it varies. in a situation like this, it is fluid. it is hard to give an exact number but we encourage customers to make sure that they have their account information and contact information all up-to-date at pge.com will be providing information to individuals experiencing outages but we want to make sure we have the right emails and phone numbers so we can reach out to them. it can vary and is hard to say because each situation may be different but we are working around the clock. kristen: can you give us some safety tips for people who have an outage right now? >> if you see a low or power line, always assume it is lies. call 911 and pg&e immediately and make sure you have flashlights with fresh batteries instead of candles for safety reasons.

if you experience an outage, go ahead and unplug some of your large appliances but leave a lamp on so you know the moment the power is turned back on. kristen: thank you so much. to track the winds and a storm that is coming, you can access the same live doppler 7 that our weather team uses anytime you want on demand on the abc 7 bay area news app. download it wherever you stream. we will be right back with a conversation

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>> public safety, revitalizing downtown, bringing back tourists. those are three pillars of the state of the city earlier this month. she acknowledged serious

challenges ahead. naysayers will be proven wrong. we are welcoming mayor breed to the show to talk about her plans for the city. hello, mayor breed. >> hello, good afternoon. kristen: i wan on the big story of the day. east bay congresswoman barbara lee announced she is running the race for the senate seat. you had expressed this appointment when governor newsom appointed alex padilla to fill kamala harris's seat. are you giving your endorsement right now? mayor breed: i expressed disappointment because he did not replace kamala harris with an african-american woman when there were no african-american women in congress but alex padilla is a dear friend that has done a great job for the state of pella, really excited to hear about barbara lee and she has been a trail blazer. she is courageous, amazing, has

wonderful relationships in d.c. and here locally in the bay area. she is such a strong fighter and so committed to this state so i am really proud of her and everything she has done and i think she is pretty amazing. kristen: we want to talk about the city. i know the budget is going to be tough this year. you are looking at a $700 million hole, dwindling tax revenue, companies leaving, allowing remote work, small businesses are really hurting, and some residents are departing. what are the key pillars of your plan to reduce these trends? mayor breed: to be clear, we have had not only more businesses decide to come to san francisco but to expand in many of those key pillars have everything to do with, for those companies, especially those that want to stay and are committed to san francisco, to provide incentives, to provide ease of zoning laws so they can make transitions if they want, to

instead of just focusing on office space to include lab space for the life sciences, that it is possible. we are looking at tax breaks for some of our existing businesses as well as new businesses who want to come here. for the first three years, the city -- i am proposing that we waive taxes for the city because we want to make sure people understand financially what they can expect in a place like san francisco. but more importantly, we want them to ensure that their future -- we want to ensure them that their future will be bright and exciting because here in the city, not only is this a beautiful city, but the talent is here and that is what peopler the world. the recruitment efforts that they do in san francisco for the people who work here, our engineers, software engineers, folks who understand how to manage and create in these industries has been extraordinary. kristen: indeed.

we hear extraordinary talent but i want to address the many empty office spaces, you know, partly due to the remote work and the talk of turning that into housing and making that an expedited process. do you support that? mayor breed: we have already done it. we have already made rezoning changes so that we could transfer or change offices in san francisco to housing. but it's not just going to be that. even though we have a 25% vacancy rate of our office space in san francisco, in the life sciences, it is not even 5%. there is a really strong push to ensure that we are diversifying industries so we are not reliant upon one industry directly and that includes the zoning laws that need to change in order to make it easier to convert to not just housing but to lab space and other things that people might need for their businesses. kristen: all right. let's talk about building a safer city.

what is the biggest priority for you as you try and reduce violent and property crime? mayor breed: the biggest priority is making sure that we have a sufficient police force. that we are able to not only investigate these crimes but make arrests and see them through so that there is a level of accountability. this is one of the most understanding and compassionate cities. we believe in second chances. we believe in providing people with opportunities and i appreciate how san franciscans are always making the right investments to help people to turn their lives around, but when those lines are crossed, we have to make sure that there is a system in place to deal with that and the follow-through necessary to ensure not only that someone is held accountable but part of having a sufficient police force is making sure that those crimes are not committed in the first place so we are proposing a budget supplemental with the board of supervisors to

not only help us on recruitment and retention but we need to maintain the basics of city services with the department even now so that is going to be a heavy lift as we try and add more officers. we are short over 500 police officers. we have a plan in place for recruitment and retention but it's going to take a lot of work with the board of supervisors to get us to a place where we can actually see the benefits of having a decent, robust police force. kristen: we have done stories with residents describing their neighbor heard as becoming -- neighborhood becoming a las vegas strip with prostitution. the city put up barricades as deterrence. some firefighters have raised some concerns. how do you think it is going there? mayor breed: i think it is going great. the community thinks it is going great. we have emails and messages from the people who actually live in this area to demonstrate that this has been great for them. it is a change they have been demanding that the city do something.

we did something. we worked with our police officers to try to put as many resources as we could we cannot be there 24/7 so part of this is to make sure that we disrupt and this is what this barrier is doing is disrupting the flow and making it difficult for people to drive down the street like they have in the past and it has really been a game changer for this neighborhood. kristen: mayor, many politicians are calling on the biden administration to strengthen the border and the administration itself is proposing having asylum-seekers wait in mexico or another country instead of coming here. but you actually joined a couple dozen mayors to push for an easier, quicker path for internationals to come in. can you explain? mayor breed: the desire is to get more tourists into san francisco. people who are visiting this fee who may have job opportunities in the city --

have job opportunities. if they want to visit, it should not take over 400 days for them to get their visas approved to just visit san francisco as a location for their vacation. it is impacting our economy and we want to make sure that that has changed. kristen: this is very important. everybody is asking me to ask you about this. the sick pay expired at the start of the year but the city, being san francisco, was requiring employers to provide sick pay but i think that is ending at the end of the month now that the public health emergency is ending. so what does this mean for people? a lot of people are wondering what -- will they still get sick pay? mayor breed: many companies that have sick pay will be able to use their regular sick pay, whatever is in their existing benefits. the city and county of san francisco has very generous benefits where we provide sick pay just in general so when people need to take a day off,

they will be able to do so whereas during covid, there was an additional layer added to address the challenges around covid especially because time off was sometimes a lot longer than it would be for someone who took some time off for the flu or a cold during normal flu and cold seasons so it's just going to change things where that will not be an offer any longer but for most employers who have benefits and sick pay in particular, that should still be supported through those means. kristen: london breed, appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. mayor breed: thank you. kristen: we will paper being crumpled more paper being crumpled music: “i wish” by skee-lo boom! sound of paper balls landing in bins office workers cheering music stops why do we shoot baskets with paper balls?

for the same reason we play scratchers from the california lottery. because a little play can make your day. logo scratches on

kristen: a public records request has led to the discovery of an alarming issue within the san francisco school district. our media partner has a new article on its website on how the district has allowed

employees, accused of sexual misconduct, to resign or retire rather than be fired. joining us with what he has uncovered is the senior reporter for the sf standard. thanks for joining us. matthew: thank you for having me. kristen: how many employees are we talking about here? matthew: 19 employees that we know of who were allowed to resign or retire in lieu of a formal termination after they were accused of some kind of sexual misconduct. kristen:ha kind of sexual misconduct? do you have any examples? matthew: this is a very broad term. it includes things that are not related to students in any way but also it includes someone who is accused of sexually abusing students while an athletic director. it includes teachers accused of sexually harassing students or of touching students inappropriately and it includes a lot of things are sort of in between. there are some cases involving sexual harassment of another

employee, i believe. it is a broad spectrum. kristen: what prompted you to look into this and asked for this information? matthew: there was a story discovered -- there was a case -- a civil case in the superior court discovered by my colleagues that involved some former students of a high school in san francisco suing the school district over the fact that they alleged they were sexually abused by an athletic director and that led them to request or documents on this subject and we gradually turned up more and more cases and discovered that this issue is a little bit of a black hole. it is hard to find out what the allegations against these teachers were. in some cases, we have some information. in other cases, we don't. in seven cases, we could find almost nothing out from our public records request except that they received a settlement agreement allowing them to resign for some kind of sexual

misconduct and what that means is if we cannot get it, there is no way the public can find that either. kristen: were you able to find out if any of these 19 cases resulted in prosecutions? matthew: by and large, it looks like they did not. we are still looking into that. in some cases, police were definitely involved but it did not necessarily lead to charges. i think that is an interesting question of why that happens. it is likely because there is not enough evidence for prosecution and one thing we should say is the standard for law enforcement to charge someone and prosecute someone is much higher than the standard for a school district to simply determine they committed misconduct and to fire them but these people were not fired. they were allowed to resign for a settlement agreement and those agreements say that they are nonpresidential meaning they do not constitute an admission of wrongdoing. it is simply a brokered settlement between two parties. kristen: does the district's

handbook, if you will, spell out exactly what is a fireball offense when it comes to sexual misconduct and did these cases rise to that? matthew: we looked at the handbook, at the contract, i should say, the union labor contract for teachers, and while it does describe what things are fireball offenses, i would not say at least from what i could see that it was extremely detailed so i think there's a lot of open questions there. kristen: that could be one of the issues, right? but who benefits and who is harmed when these employees are allowed to simply resign or retire instead -- as opposed to being fired? matthew: let's start with who benefits. this type of a settlement is, at least on the superficially, it is beneficial for everyone. for the district, they manage to get the teacher or employee away from students as soon as possible. that makes students may have been harmed by this employee feel safer on campus.

it also is often amenable to parents. it also means the district doesn't have to deal with bad publicity from this incident because the incident usually doesn't go public. it is quietly solved. also, teachers have quite a bit of due process allow meant their union contracts. they are entitled to a hearing in which people need to testify including potentially the students they have wronged. district says this settlement prevents the students from being re-traumatized. there is a broad perception that it costs a lot of money to fire a teacher. who is harmed? that is simple. people who criticize these are settlement agreements say it allows teachers to resign, go quiet. kristen: we are out of time. i invite folks to check out your article on sfstandard.com. we will take a i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget,

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tonight, a special edition of "world news tonight." president biden and the high stakes speech on the world stage in warsaw. the war in ukraine set to mark one year, and the president's message to vladimir putin. president biden vowing that quote, ukraine will never be a victory for russia. 24 hours after his secret and history making trip to ukraine's capital, the president declaring kyiv stands strong. then vladimir putin delivering his state of the nation address, sending his own message to the u.s. and the west. mary and martha joining me in warsaw, ian is live in kyiv. in the u.s., a major