find. solutions this is abc seven news there. i'm kristin z . you're watching getting answers on abc seven every day, we talked with experts about issues about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time. to the biden administration ended the covid public health emergency this week three weeks ahead of schedule, what does this mean for vulnerable residents across the bay area worried about losing their medi-cal coverage? also, the valley authors festival is taking place at the end of the month. one of the inspirational authors who has conferred the tech world

, sexual abuse, and the tallest mountain on every single continent will share the lessons she has learned. but first emotions are running high in antioch after an explosive city council meeting triggered by racist text allegedly sent by some antioch police officers. the debate over it led to an art cry -- to an outcry at the special city council meeting to discuss the text messages. >> i am sick and tired of being attacked by these people in this community, apologizing for the racism that is going on in this community. you're the problem! kristen: joining us live now in the studio is the antioch mayor. thanks for coming in. >> thank you for having me. kristen: i know you apologized right in there afterwards, but what is the regret you feel in terms of what you said?

if you feel regret at all. >> i don't regret anything. the apology was for not keeping the meeting on course. the apology was not for what i did, standing up for racism requires no apology. kristen: and no part of what you said would you take back even today, right? >> absolutely not. there are people who had dogs -- who have had dogs used against him and fire hoses used against them. some were spent in their face when they set to segregate lunch counters. it's a privilege to be able to stand up and look at people who are using bigoted remarks have a racist understanding of the world and be able to tell them i'm going to stand up against this and not allow you to take over this process right here just for your garbage -- to spew your garbage. kristen: are you surprised they got to that point of being that emotional for you? >> i don't know what human being

wouldn't be emotional. the fact of the matter is we had community members at that meeting who were expressing their concerns about the police, expressing their concerns around racism including people who absolutely either do not like me or have challenges around -- policy recommendations or policy direction who are there literally apologizing for what they had seen and for their past actions, in terms of being on opposite ends of the political spectrum related to policing. i was -- the profound emotion of the community coming together, recognizing a problem and trying to deal with it was beautiful but to try to have someone hijack that process and continue to provide cover for racism within our police department was wrong. i was going to stand up for it. kristen: for our viewers who have not been following at that closely, this stems from that investigation -- the ongoing investigation by the fbi and contra costa das office.

you shared some of the police texts you were referring to with a reporter -- with our reporter and i was wondering if you could share some of that with our viewers, so they get why you were so upset. i do want to warn viewers that these will be upsetting to many people. >> i have not seen the text messages. they had the assumption that many reporters have that i have seen the text messages, i have not. they asked if they could read some of them to me. in order for me to react, and i did. i couldn't get past eight or nine of the text messages before my stomach started to turn. every other word was the word. implications around mexicans and homophobic remarks. antioch is the second m racially diverse city in the san francisco bay area with one of the fastest growing cities in the bay area. there is no room for this type

of language in our city. i represent every single resident in our community. of course it was not just upsetting to me as a black man in america but it was upsetting to me as a mayor of one of the most racially diverse cities in the bay area. i was absolutely disgusted. i was disappointed. i was embarrassed. and everything you can find in the book, i was at that moment. i couldn't get past eight or nine text messages before i said, "please, stop." kristen: it's not just the text messages, this came out as they look into alleged bribery and fraud, excessive use of force allegations, all that. fundamentally, do you think that is what's defined the culture of the antioch police department? >> i can't speak to the fbi investigation. we will learn more about that later. what i can say is, these text messages, the judge said, i didn't say this, the judge said -- let's be very clear what racial animus means, it means racism. that is a very nice way of saying racism.

it was absolutely, it absolutel to me speaks to a culture in the police department that is not acceptable, because we are in any police department would you find the president of the police union and the secretary of the police union as part of this group -- senior level officials, where that is acceptable? what room can you walk into and see that this is acceptable behavior? these are acceptable text messages? the attitudes expressed here are acceptable other than to point to culture? there's a culture that exists that says this is ok to exist. that is what it is saying. so it was very -- it was troubling. kristen: who do you hold responsible? >> i hold the community members responsible for this. particularly people like last night, who came into our room as people are expressing themselves and think, i have the right and the privilege to stand here and

minimize everybody's experience because my opinion matters more than yours. those are the people to blame for continuing too provide cover to the police department and this type of culture, they are responsible for this. kristen: how do you think police stephen ford is handling this? >> he has not set anything up until this point. i did see some of his remarks last night. i was very happy that he was very clear as to what these text messages mean for the department and that they are not acceptable. i was pleased to see that. in terms of what his job will be, he has a hard job ahead of him. this counsel is not going to be like past councils where we look the other way. we are going to have very high expectations. we are going to change the structure of reporting in the city and the chief will report to the city council directly. we will no longer have a buffer between us. this will be our police department and it will not be an independent agency as its run in the past as if it has no ties to the city. kristen: i want to go back to

last night, the committee member you confronted called for an audit of your own text messages, and putting during protests against antioch police more than two years ago and a few other incidents. wondering what you think about that. >> same old racist dog whistles that i've been hearing for the last two years. it's all a bunch of gas lighting minimizing which is happened. we are talking about text messages that were released by a superior court judge in contra costa county, this never happens, they never release names and they never released this type of information, this is a historic move. and for him to come in and minimize this as if it's no big deal, here the problem -- you are the problem. kristen: what has the revolution of these text messages done to your community? i wonder if you think given the broader context of what's happening today, does come at a terrible time --

does it come at a terrible time? >> there is no right time to recognize that there's racism going on in your police department. kristen: what does it to in terms of the work you are trying to achieve? >> we've been trying to restore confidence in the public. we had for the first time huge demonstrations in the city of antioch in 2020 to specific police officers at the police department. michael malone and steve and in the past, the mayor looked the other way and councils looked the other way and they ran from the press and did not want to answer questions. at the end of the day, the public held those individuals accountable. we no longer have that mayor. it never comes at the right time. what it means for the community as we now have to work even harder to continue to build a police department that every single segment of our community can trust. the police department cannot just be an institution where

certain groups of white people feel safe. like people have to feel safe -- black people have to feel safe, asians have to feel safe. we made historic steps to try to reconcile by doing a historic chinese apology -- latinos have to be have to feel safe. immigrants in our community have to feel safe. we have people from afghanistan coming down, we have indian americans in antioch. we have a growing number chinese coming from hong kong to antioch. everyone has to feel some level of relationship and engagement from their police department. this doesn't help. kristen: concretely, what are the few things that you would say would need to happen for people to feel safe and have that trust in their police? >> is going to be a long-term process. it's not going to happen overnight. our police reform efforts have tinkered on the edges. now we are going to focus on

culture. next tuesday we will be having a special meeting to specifically move forward on an internal affairs audit, a hiring and promotions audit as well as an equity audit for the police department. once we push forward those three items, we hope we can get data that is critical to inform the decision-making process moving forward but as it relates to culture. we think those three areas will start that process. the federal covid emergency is expiring putting californians at risk of putting their health coverage. next, alicia joe from color health talks about the outreach efforts to inform those at risk and what they can do to ensure they keep th

kristen: the biden administration moved to en that's publicd health emergency -- its public of the emergency that had been in place for three years. with that, confusion over whether millions will lose their medical coverage. to know whether people can keep their health coverage or options, door-to-door outreach happened today in china's chinatown. joining us today is the chief science officer for a color health, dr. alisha joe. thanks for your time. >> thank you so much for having me today. kristen: absolutely. this information pertains to so many people. today color health, the chinese hospital in san francisco and the state treasurer can best -- canvassed chinatown together to give people information about what is happening with their medi-cal coverage as a result of the health emergency ending. we have pictures from the event.

tell us what the goal was. >> absolutely. some people might know, as of monday, president biden announced we are coming to the end of our covid health emergency. on one hand, that is great news. but there are implications for californians. specifically individuals on medi-cal. now what that -- now with it ending that means people will have to look at if they are covered by medi-cal coverage in the future. that can be complicated. to make sure they understand that if they have questions about coverage changing, that they have a resource and ensure

that they understand if they have medi-cal continuing and if they are eligible for the marketplace. kristen: i read up to two to 3 million californians could be disenrolled. explain to me why that is. again it is not that eligibility has changed, it's just that nobody got dropped during the covid period? >> exactly. essentially what happened was, when the public health emergency started, when it came to medical coverage, and happened during the entire public health emergency that was continuously enrolled. -- continuously enrolling. what is happening now that the public health emergency is ending his medi-cal will start looking at eligibility again. for example if you lost your job during the pandemic be going over covered california. kristen: when you went and

canvassed and talked to people today did you get the sense that most people knew or were caught unaware? >> obviously it is very confusing. one of the things we've always prioritized is how to get access to care when you need it. when it comes to coverage, a lot of folks don't really know, mi covered by medi-cal or not? am i on medi-cal or not? individuals will be receiving a letter. for some residents, [indiscernible] we want folks to know they can't take that in. translators will help them and they can understand for themselves. kristen: i see. is that only chinese language help available? are there other languages available as well? it's a very diverse population. >> that's a great question. the chinese hospital in san francisco, they certainly have

all sorts of language translators. californians. this is something various communities can also benefit from. kristen: how can people ensure they don't get dropped and not even know about it? >> that's a great question. for individuals today on medicaid or medi-cal in california, if they are not sure, they can call their local medicaid office, as well as the one in san mateo. for individuals near the hospital, they certainly can walk in. kristen: also, is there an importance to keeping your address updated and make sure they have it? >> absolutely. the types of things are going to

determine whether your coverage continues or not are things like your income and those type of things, so keeping an up to date contact information and address is important. kristen: ok, bottom line, if people seek more where should they go for information and support? >> the san francisco office medicaid has a hotline phone number that they can call -- 415-5 58-4700. for someone at the chinese hospital. kristen: thank you so very much today. >> thank you. kristen: we will certainly need one hour to the till our next guest's accomplishments, from tech executive to nonprofit founder to global explorer, and now author. sylvia baskets lavado joins us next to talk about an upcoming

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kristen: our next guest is a humanitarian, mountaineer explorer extraordinaire, social entrepreneur and technologist. cnet named her one of the most influential latinos in silicon valley. today she's talking books. we forgot to mention she's also an author who will be featured at an upcoming book festival. joining us live now is silvia vasquez-lavado to discuss tech, tracking answer but. thanks for joining us -- trekking, and her book. thanks for joining us. he will be featured in the upcoming sonoma valley authors festival at the end of the month. what can bibliophiles expect at the festival? >> first of all, these festival -- this festival is going to be something that we have been wanting to get done for so many years.

it is coming back bigger and better. and the lineup of authors is just out of this world incredible. i feel every single person is going to be blown away by the topics we are going to be able to share with everybody. it is going to be unforgettable. kristen: you are going to share your book, "in the shadow of the mountain: a memoir of courage," tell us about your inspiration for the book as drawn from your own personal life and trauma and powering through it. kristen: thank you -- >> thank you, kristen. my deepest information for the book was to write something that would help end sexual violence against children. i know that not a single book can do that. but i wanted to take abuse out of the shadows and contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way. i want leaders own emotional mountains whatever they are and they know this book has done that. it's been able to bring the

power, the resilience will have inside of us. how vulnerability can help us climb the biggest mountains there are out there. the book also allowed me to learn that when we heal most is when we heal together in a community. it is such a powerful roller coaster ride. readers cannot put it down. it's really powerful, from the feedback. kristen: i don't know if you conquer it or get through it or somehow manage to kind of defeat it in your own life. but the sexual abuse and trauma you talked about, was it the climbing that helped you? i think for a lot of people, is it finding a passion or a purpose? >> it was a combination of both. ultimately what makes it unique is i bring a group of survivors with me to the base of everest and that is that journey as we are walking together sharing our

stories that really brings healing and allows me to get a powerful amount of strength which actually is my connection to vulnerability and openness which is what led me to make it to the summit. it is something that is very unique that not many people are able to relate to in terms of a mountaineer inside. especially with everything we have gone through over the last couple of years. to be relatable for many people. kristen: you are right. it is all about community. you found it in mountaineering. she's the first peruvian woman to summit mount everest. i think you've also climbed every continent's tallest peak. how do you do that? what did you need to do to get yourself, your body and mind ready? >> i didn't start doing this -- i didn't do this until i was in my mid-30's.

so it's never too late to actually be able to continue with a passion. i tell everyone, it is one step at a time. sometimes it is going to be a step forwards or backwards but will have the resilience to continue. every single mountain, i never take it for granted. i just surrender and have a lot of respect and surrender to how far i'm going to make it. it's a very humbling journey for me. kristen: you've reached the summit of your career as well. you've worked for ebay and paypal. found a lot of career success. but you are most proud of finding courageous girls, the san francisco nonprofit that helps victims of can you tell people where to go if they are interested in the organization? >> they can reach out to me at courageousgirls

they can reach out to me. i am so blessed and grateful to have had this opportunity of sharing my story and i can't wait for you to come to the fest. it's going to be such a powerful opportunity for all of us to meet. kristen: since that is going to be the case, let us show folks the festival is april 28th the 30th. silvia vasquez-lavado and other authors will be there to discuss their books. it will be great. that is april 28th to 30th. and it is the sonoma valley authors festival. sylvia, thank you so much. >> thank you so much for this opportunity. hope to see you there. kristen:

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kristen: thank you so much for joining us today for "getting answers." we will be here every weekday at 3:00 p.m. answering questions with experts from around the bay ♪ ♪ >> tonight, the chilling call to 911 just released, the little mother calling authorities just minutes before that massshootin. her plea to authorities before the horrific shooting at old national bank. what she said about her son, but his roommate had said, but seeing her son was not violent, did not own a gun. trevor in the floor though. if we are also following two fires tonight, that massive fire at a recycling plant still burning, the evacuations in the thousands and the new fears tonight and what authorities revealed today about their concerns even before the fire broke out. also tonight, this rare wildfire outside new york city burning in new jersey, the images coming in. the turning tennessee, the second lawmaker now expelled for his protest on the floor of the