moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. ♪ kristen: hi there. i'm kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers" on abc7. every day, we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and we get answers for you in real time. today democratic boys is calling on senator dianne feinstein to give up her seat now after she volunteered last night to step away from her judiciary committee seat. the 89-year-old lawmaker has been gone since march recovering from shingles. is this being viewed through a sexist lens? we will talk with political analyst jackie speier. plus a nonprofit that get millions of dollars to house homeless people in san francisco will be blocked from future city contracts. the san francisco standard will join us to discuss what

this means for the efforts to shelter unsheltered people. but first, san francisco officials held a san -- held a press conference today on the stabbing death of bob lee. the suspect is somebody who knew lee. the district attorney says this runs counter to those who jumped to the conclusion that this was likely a random crime that underscored the application that san francisco was gotham city, with out-of-control crime. >> we all should and must do better about not contributing to the spread of such misinformation without having actual facts to underlie the statements that we make. victims deserve that, and the residence of san francisco deserve that. the former editor-in-chief of the oakland tribune and co-executive director of the

oakland-based maynard and said to -- maynard institute, martin g reynolds. we in the journalism business know the maynard institute's mission and work, what is it? >> we focus on helping the news media reflect the diversity of the nation. we drain journalists of all backgrounds to do a better job of reporting on stories that affect society into a better job of thinking across the social fault lines to really provide coverage that is accurate and nuanced. kristen: i do want to get into what social fault lines are in a little bit. but real quickly -- we touched on and aired the interview in which d.a. jenkins seems to be directing the message to the media. do you think that is fair about misinformation that was shared? >> i don't know about misinformation. it depends on the outlet. but i do think that the media runs -- has some blame in its

approach to the coverage of crime. echoing sort of a conflict that have emerged -- echoing sort of the conflicts that have emerged, pointing to which cities or states are more or less safe. and i don't think that we do our communities and our public any service if we echo those conflicts without providing context for what is actually happening on the ground. kristen: so then what kind of things would account for context, if you will, like in this case? >> i think in this case, we know he said he liked san francisco and -- we know a city like san francisco and across the board, crime has been going down, san francisco in particular has far less violent crime, and that's not to say that there are not issues around robberies and thefts and the like. crime is happening. but if we talk about violent crime as a whole across

our nation during a time that it's perceived that is going up, the statistics show it is going down. kristen: how do we determine what set of statistics to look at? in this case, although the conversation was triggered by a homicide, we recognize homicide is not the only thing that contributes people -- contributes to people's feelings of safety or lack of safety. is it fair once a conversation has begun into, is this a safe city, to also look at the thefts for example or the fact that windows would get broken into and those numbers are not necessarily down over time, is it fair for those who say, yeah, that also makes me feel unsafe so those numbers should also be looked at? >> i do think it is fair. as you and i were discussing, how -- the work that we do around the fault lines of race, of class, gender, generation, geography, sexual orientation, the fissures

of politics and religions really all shape our perceptions of the world, therefore it shapes our biases. depending on how you align one of these clues -- one of these social fault lines, depending on your race or where you live, you can have a very different perception about, what is safety? do i feel safe where i am? that is a very powerful thing and it's real for folks. but i think we also need to contextualize the perception of safety can be determined by what we see, the broken window theory was raised. but it doesn't necessarily mean that it -- that in actuality you are any less safe. kristen: when you see broken windows, you think, crime happens here and you think something can happen to me, and that is a very powerful perception that is deep in our psyche, it kind of sends a flight response.

i guess my question is, someone saying, it's not just a perception alone -- some people say it is -- others might go, no, because that means i can potentially be in a conflict or situation or catching someone in the middle of breaking a window for example or breaking into your car and that can lead to violence. are those things also fair game in a conversation about the city's overall safety? >> i think they are fair game in a conversation of the city's overall safety because quality of life israel. it is important if you -- is real. it is important if you go out to dinner with someone and you come back in your car's windows are smashed. you have not been necessarily harmed, your car has, but now you navigate all the challenges that come with that. if we only stay at that level of conversation, we are missing the rear challenges our society is facing around poverty. we'll poverty is a huge driver of crime. -- we know property is a huge driver of crime.

we see encampments, folks that are on housed, how heartbreaking that is. i would like for journalists to do a better job and people seek to get information around these larger systemic issues facing our nation, facing our cities, facing our communities, and how do we dig deep into addressing those? kristen: i guess those conversations could hopefully occur at once, if you are simply able to recognize each other's faultlines, if you will. circumstances, that shape your views? >> it is a complex dynamic we are all navigating. there is a visceral feeling that we see when we are in a community that has these challenges. and then the larger narrative that we are hearing, that we are seeing on social media, and let's be real that the news media often perpetuates -- then the conversations happening with people going to public meetings and the work that is happening

in municipalities they today by elected officials and folks in the community and by residents voicing concerns. we are living in complex times navigating deep and complex problems. the hope is that our journalism can help to unpack those things and we can have multiple conversations at one time. and to not look at what divides us but what helps binds us as a community and as people. great journalism does that. kristen: do we need to first get everybody to sit down and agree on kind of a common ground, these are the metrics we are going to look at, what makes you feel safe or not safe, what would you like to see changed? how does that we can and how do we begin to foster that conversation? >> bob maynard, the former owner and operator of the oakland tribune, one of the cofounders, he talked about that the faultlines, we don't need to agree -- i do think we need to

agree on a shared set of facts, i do think we are living in a place where this notion of alternative facts has emerged, but there are many official sources that can be utilized. i think what concerns me now is that we have got into a place in our society where two plus two does not equal four. we are not agreeing on these very basic things, and that makes it more challenging. but i don't think we need to have two always agree in order to address issues and challenges. because the reality is that we are not. but i think the fear i have now, it's just the fact that there are disagreements on things that used to be agreed upon in terms of basic facts from which to have a conversation. kristen: martin reynolds, i realize this is a long conversation that can certainly take a whole half-hour. perhaps we will have to chat another day. appreciate you coming on today. >> appreciate you having me.

kristen: public safety's certainly something we are always monitoring with our abc7 neighborhood safety tracker, you can use a tool to see how your city fares when it comes to crime, you can pick the crime and pick your city. find the neighborhood safety tracker on our website, abc7news.com. coming up -- growing concern over senator dianne feinstein's health and ability to do her job. some members of her party are even calling for her to resign now. our political analyst, jackie speier, will join

kristen: a few house democrats are calling on a veteran of their own party, senator dianne feinstein, to resign, after she

announced yesterday she is willing to temporarily step aside from her judiciary committee post after being absent since march to recover from shingles. her friend and former house speaker nancy pelosi had this to say when abc7 asked her about the calls for feinstein to resign. >> i don't know what political agendas are at work that are going after senator feinstein and that way -- in that way. i've never seen them go after a man that was steak in the senate in that way. kristen: different treatment because she is a woman? joining us to discuss the situation is former peninsula congresswoman and political analyst jackie spear. thank you for coming on the show. >> great to be with you. hearing nancy pelosi make that comment kind of rings true. senator mark kirk, who had a stroke back in 2012, was away from the senate for a full year. so was senator tim from south dakota who was away from the senate for eight months. john mccain, ted kennedy,

arlen specter, all senators who were struggling with cancer and were away for long periods of time. so she is right to say, there appears to be a little gender this termination going on here. as to as to mr. ro khanna, some wear ambitions on their sleeve. i think ro is one of those individuals. there's a group of 40-year-old's in congress right now that are ambitious to the point of wanting to move people along. khanna also supported leon for the senate seat, when senator feinstein ran for reelection some four years ago. there is a history there as well. kristen: that is important context. i am floating it out there, i'm

not suggesting anything -- but the senators you named who were men who had prolonged medical absences, was that during a time when perhaps it wasn't so divided? the members were not so close? it was not 51-49, we are if you lose two people for a length of time, everything comes to a screeching halt for your party's agenda, i wonder if that may have something to do with it? >> you might recall that it was senator john mccain that was the final vote, the one vote necessary to retain the affordable care act, when there was an effort in the senate repeal it. he came to the floor and down if you recall. to senator feinstein's credit, she recognizes her time away has prevented the judiciary committee from taking up some of these potential digital appointment -- judicial

appointments, so there will be an effort to replace her for a period of time. but i also think it is important to point out that she is continuing to work from home, and when you get shingles and you are older, the impact is pretty dramatic. so her recovery is taking longer. kristen: shingles is terrible. everybody got the shingles vaccine if you can -- get the shingles vaccine, if you can. it's not just the judicial votes but there are other votes that she's missed and you talk about this temporary effort to replace her which she agreed to last night and wanted to do so -- how does that begin to work? is it the kind of thing where the senator can just appoint someone? does it require the publicans to agree? how does it work? >> i think they have to get to 60 in the senate for that to take place. and i think there will be that kind of an accommodation that would be made, so that can

transpire. i would presume so. the senate is a very collegial group, when it comes to taking care of their own and supporting their colleagues when they are having physical issues. and we have two other last year, senator lujan from new mexico and senator van hollen from virginia, both who had strokes in that year. so -- and they were y senators, i might add. so there is an effort to try and be productive of their colleagues. kristen: i see. what about the pennsylvania senator, john fetterman? out for depression. of course, he also helped take the advantage of the democrats in the senate -- are their calls for him to resign as well now? >> i don't believe there are. i think he's now completed his

care for depression and is returning to the senate. he had a double whammy. he had the stroke. he is had auditory processing issues associated with it. -- he has had auditory processing issues associated with it. he needs accommodations on the senate floor so he can see what is being set as opposed to not just hearing it. that i think is probably -- has probably had an impact on him. kristen: in terms of a replacement, temporary replacement, any names come to mind? >> i think they will probably select another democrat from one of the states where you have someone that's had some judicial experience or legal experience. i don't know who he might appoint. kristen: that of course is one of the key plum assignments in the senate to be on the judiciary committee. we will see. in terms of -- we all know senator feinstein's not seeking reelection next year. we know katie porter, adam

schiff, barbara lee, all congressional reps, are some of the big names vying for that seat, does that situation here now affect the actual election for the seat next year somehow? >> i don't think so. i think the three of them are going to run robust campaigns. we will see who fares on the primary. it's a march primary. so that is sooner than later. if for whatever reasons there was a resignation for instance, i think the governor would be hard-pressed to appoint one of them. he what i think be required to appoint someone who could be a caretaker. so he's not tipping the scales one way or the other, in terms of that election. kristen: that does make a lot of sense. alright. political analyst jackie speier thank you so much for coming on the show today. >> great to be with you. kristen: coming up next --

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kristen: an organization that received millions to house and shelter homeless in san francisco will be blocked from further city contracts. it is an investigation the san francisco standard has been following. in a scathing all -- of human services. joining us with more is the standard's senior reporter, josh kane. thanks for being on the show. what is this organization supposed to do? what is its mission and scope? >> unite council of human services provides a range of services. they operate a shelter site at pier 94. they serve meals for needy people in the bayview district of san francisco.

they also run permanent housing and supportive housing and shelters for people who are homeless. kristen: what did this audit find? who conducted it? what were the alleged wrongdoings? >> late last year, the controller's office control -- conducted an audit and in that audit they basically found there were numerous violations of city rules on how people were being processed into shelters and housing. on top of that it found certain people were getting may be preferential treatment that shouldn't have been put there and it also had instances where there might've been financial mismanagement to the level, that they actually referred the organization to the fbi for criminal investigation. kristen: can you give me one example of mismanagement of money and one example of preferential treatment or nepotism? >> yeah, so basically it found -- the controllers audit found

people were not going through the proper protocol for the coordinated entry system which is what the city designed to make sure that it's tracking people, getting them off the streets in a coordinated way because there are so many different departments. actually spoke with the ceo of united council of human services after the audit and she told me that basically she has been given shelters at pier 94 to roughly 20 of our family members' friends and employees. obviously that raised some concerns about whether or not that was preferential treatment on placement. . when it comes to financial mismanagement, there was a range of issues of missing receipts and paperwork for the audit. however, i went a step further and talked to professional tax attorneys and we reviewed the irs filings for the organization and these tax attorneys basically told me these are huge red flags and whoever would've compiled these irs filings is incompetent because of the level or lack of detail within the

reports. kristen: what happens now? >> now is according to documents that i reviewed and followed up with city officials for the department of homelessness and supportive housing, united council of human services is not going to get any contracts going forward. through our reporting, we found an organization which received money through an intermediary was 140 organizations the city gives money to nonprofits that were actually suspended, revoked or tagged as delinquent by the state. if you were under one of those classifications, you are actually legally not allowed to receive money is a nonprofit. -- as a nonprofit. the city issued guidance to the apartment's making sure that nonprofits have to check the boxes and in the are eligible. -- and make sure they are eligible. they found that because united

council of human services couldn't get its act together and could not file its paperwork in the proper way because of all these red flags, they are no longer going to give contracts to the organization for shelters and supportive housing, which wrecks up to about $10 million for the next fiscal year. kristen: i'm going to zoom out a little bit. what does this mean overall, in terms of the city's very pressing urgent work to house unsheltered people? i know this is also not the only nonprofit that's really encountered these situations -- you've been reporting on a lot of them. taken together, what does this mean? >> i appreciate that. sometimes i get really into the details. but at a larger kind of 30,000 foot view, this means the city is actually getting a bit more aggressive in making sure taxpayer money is going to organizations that are meeting their obligations and being good stewards of public funds and making sure that they are also carrying out their mission in

getting objectives achieved. we really tried to put a microscope on nonprofits which receive over a billion dollars from the city to carry out a range of different services. but a lot of the times, they have been essential, they've been given a free pass. if they don't meet objectives, maybe next year. if you mismanage money here, it's ok, we will have another budget cycle. san francisco's starting to look a little bit more inward because of the scrutiny that our publication and yourself and others have been putting on them and basically saying, we are going to have to do better in using these funds to get better results. kristen: josh kane, always appreciate talking to you. thank you so much. we will take a short break and we'll be

kristen: thank you so much for joining us for "getting ♪ ♪ >> suspect of the massive league of top secret pentagon document about america's allies and the war in ukraine. heavily armed federal agents swarming a home in massachusetts, a member of the international guard taken into custody a suspect arrest bombshell reporting in "the washington post" of the classified documents were posted online but the leader of an invite only chat group post interviewing young members of the group called the leader og. the joe biden administration under tremendous pressure to find the source of the leak and the motive behind it. in washington and bruce traveling with the president. also tonight the state of emergency in florida, torrential