this is abc seven news. hi there.anunina bett b area, movingorward, finding solutions,kristen: thank you sor joining us for getting answers today. we will be here every weekday at 3:00 answering questions with experts from around the bay area. today, a high-profile closure. nordstrom. two locations. we will speak with the the san francisco standard to explore it. also, national small business week. we will introduce you to a female-own platform that helps small business owners get access to credit and capital. the supreme court answers to none, but today it was under the

microscope on capitol hill as the senate judiciary committee held a hearing on the need for ethics and transparency in the wake of revelations that a justice had for years quietly accepted gifts and travel from a texas billionaire. joining us live from washington, d.c. where he testified today, jeremy vogel, a former federal judge who directs the berkeley judicial institute at uc berkeley. thank you for joining us today. i guess, as vogel, yes? j'm delighted to talk with you. kristen: just to refresh our viewers, the primary trigger was recent reports that justice thomas had accepted travel courtesy of harlan crow. he also sold his mom's home to harlan crow. none of this was disclosed. how is this an ethical concern? just as vogel: on a couple of levels -- justice vogel: on a

couple of levels. this goes well beyond anything he did or did not do. the supreme court has had questions about its ethical standards for some time and that is not to say that they had been unethical but they don't have a formal ethics code like every other court in the country whether a state court or federal court, it has a formal code of conduct and the justices and judges in those courts are expected to follow that. the supreme court has never had one. they say they follow a number of different ethical authorities but have not had clear rules that the publicsohere is hica pe andthics in government act hatoo lalents that justes dg and other federal officials disclose gifts on travel and things like that, so

the controversy with justice thomas is primarily about the ethics in government act, but raises the question of a lack of a general standard comes of the hearing covered all those points today. kristen: so mine is that standard if it has -- minus that standard, if it's never been transparent and has always been fuzzy what are the other times in the history of the high court, this has come up and there is something that republicans go, hmm. justice vogel: this is not a partisan issue. kristen: right. i hear you. justice vogel: yeah, one of the things interesting about the hearing is the hearing had a lot of partisanship in it, pro/con about justice thomas in particular, but the issue of compliance with ethical standards codes -- goes back that skates -- decades. it's not limited to, this is what has brought it to the fore. i'm not trying to minimize the

tt got a lo concern, but it issue present for a long time. justices have accepted trips, gifts, various speaking engagements before groups that had partisan orientations, and the question is whether it is ok to do that and what the limits air are on this behavior. kristen: right. right. i completely get what you're saying that while this hearing did have partisan elements with the senators climb each other has motives that are not pure, i understand as a former judge and expert who testified that your goal is to help them look at what framework could be established. justice vogel: precisely. kristen: i want to play something you said today. justice vogel: i think this is on the court and the court can do it and they have some really smart people and there are ways they can do it that don't compromise their decisional independence or institutional independence, and i think some

judges are frustrated that that has not happened. kristen: it sounds like to meet, want to clarify, are you saying that the high court should police themselves without coming up without rules for themselves as opposed to it coming from some other body? justice vogel: i think there are constitutional issues there. i think at the very least that the court should adopt a formal code of conduct. that was the point of my testimony today. i think the absence of that raises questions that are hurting the court in the public eye. if you start to talk about the trips, executive oversight, or some other kind of intrusion on the court by the other branches, you reach some constitutional questions that i don't you have to reach. i think you can simply have the court be responsive to the perception that it needs rules and it needs standards that are not so opaque that utes law degree to understand them,

that would be a major step forward and that is what i've been encouraging the court to do. kristen: you are a federal judge in california, lower than the high court. what rules, what was your code of conduct like? go over the key points and whether you think that would be enough of the supreme court. justice vogel: sure. i was a state court judge in california and santa clara county and the rules were similar. there are standards. they are called canons of ethics and you should avoid the appearance of impropriety, be impartial, not accept gifts or other considerations from people appearing before you. you should avoid bias. these are things that i think judges all over the world aspire to, and we have these canons of ethics that aly to jgeas a staa federal judge, i had to comply with those canons of ethics if i

didn't, somebody could make the complaint to courts that had supervisory authority over me and say this judge is not acting in accordance with the code of conduct come so i think the courts are responsible for making sure that judges of the lower courts come at the trial courts and appellate courts below the supreme court know the rules and follow the rules, and the issue is that because of the supreme court's unique constitutional status, it does not have the same sort of structure for making sure that judges referred to the code of conduct and follow that. kristen: was it simply that the framers of the constitution believe completely unholy and the ability of the justices to police themselves so that no conflict of interest would ever appear? justice vogel: i don't know that we can say that. i don't know that we can say what the framers were thinking about, because you know, they created a supreme court and then they left it to congress to decide what other courts there

were going to be. it came up in the hearing today, a discussion of what happened at the time of the founding at what congress did/didn't do with respect to the supreme court. was it that other people who testified today, professor frost from the university of virginia emmett said if you go back to the founding but actually there was some indication that the founders did expect that congress would be a check and balance on the supreme court. it is just that has not been tested and there has never been a case that would clarify that. i think it is just better in terms of avoiding constitutional confrontation if the court takes it upon itself to adopt a code of conduct. if it does not, i think there will be people in congress who want to impose one and i think that will be messy and i do not think it is necessary and that was my point. kristen: we have seen some polls about the erosion of faith and trust in the supreme court. do you think having a code of

conduct is a piece of that? justice vogel: i think that will help a lot. i discussed that in my testimony. it is stunning. the court had two thirds approval -- if you could imagine any government entity of any kind having two thirds approval -- 10 years ago and now it has a two thirds disapproval, so there has been a complete reversal of people's view of the supreme court come and some of you can made decisio ao't like. i think that be preart tha ane such a partisan atmosphere and confirmation hearings that have been come increasingly contentious and partisan of people getting information from social media that reflects very extreme views come in so we don't have civics in school anymore, so you have a lot of different factors that play into it. for the court to take the affirmative step of saying look, we take ourselves seriously enough that we are going to

impose on ourselves a code of conduct that we are going to follow. i think that would be the way for the court to deal with it in a nonpartisan way to make a positive statement. kristen: the current supreme court is 6-3 conservative come up but if it were flipped and 6-3 liberal, would you still say you want the same reforms? justice vogel: absolutely. it would not make any difference to me. one of the people who did not testify live but submitted written testimony is a fellow who was a judge on the fourth circuit court of appeals for years, a very conservative judge and find judge. he said really to exactly your point that this is something that is not political. he said the court needs to adopt standards and if anything they need to hold themselves to higher standards than other judges do. kristen: jeremy vogel, former federal judge and director of the judicial institute at uc berkeley. justice vogel: thank you for inviting me. kristen: thank you.

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kristen: another huge setback. nordstrom today announced it is closing its two locations in the city. the san francisco standard has a new article today exploring why these stores are closing, the impact, coming on top of numerous recent closures. joining us live now is the senior editor at the san francisco standard who wrote about the closure today. thank you for coming on the show.

>> thank you for having me. kristen: which nordstrom's or closing? >> the two last nordstrom's both located in san francisco downtown comes that this includes the nordstrom rack shop at fifth and market streets and perhaps even more importantly, this also includes the massive multi-for nordstrom's located at westfield mall, which i think it is hard to overstate what a loss this is for that mall and for the shopping area in general. kristen: that was sort of the flagship. it was the upscale destination for many years. so what is the reason nordstrom gave? >> yeah, well, we got an internal email from the companies chief stores officer that said the shop had been dealing with challenging conditions in the area that led to declining for traffic but we also reached out to westfield mall and its owner, and they had a more pointed critique of the

factors that led to the closure. they blamed deteriorating street conditions in the city and lack of safety for employees and customers and said they tried to work with the city to remediate those issues, but ultimately were unsuccessful. kristen: i see. so nordstrom a little bit more bacon westfield more specific. annie: yes. kristen: so your story actually, because we have to put this in context, it looks at otherhi-pfd 2020. and you walk us through what this means? do we have that? annie: yes. yeah, so we counted by now about 20 closures in the greater union shopping district since 2020, and that includes recent ones like the high-profile sudden closure of whole foods nearby in the midmarket area. so you know, that this is a very significant kind of, you know,

headwind for what people want to see in terms of a downtown recovery. there are many retail vacancies that hurt the city in high-profile retailers who have opted to leave, some citing the same conditions at the westfield mall owners said, so this is just another blow to the area. kristen: let's talk about it. when stores closed but what does the city lose in terms of the financials? annie: yeah, they lose a lot. they lose mainly sales tax, foot traffic. people have a less of an incentive to come to the area and shop. over time, there are concerns that vacancies could lead to longer-term hits to property values which affects property taxes as well and so there are a lot of ripple effects that come from this but i think the main thing is people have less of a reason to come to the area. that nordstrom's was in our conic location known for architectural details and a spiral staircase that was very

avant-garde when it open, and it's hard to imagine the area without it. outside the south market area, are stores doing better? annie: you know, it's hard to say because we did spend some time today reaching out to some of the other retailers in westfield mall, and we have not heard back yet from a lot, but we've heard the same anecdotes from people who run businesses in that area whose site declining for traffic, covid is a factor in the far fewe people spending timer there, but many cite the challenges on the street, people feeling nervous, anxious about spending time in that area as well so it all adds to a toxic mix and a difficult environment for businesses. kristen: is not just nordstrom's overall. sometimes a chain, i don't want to use an excuse, but say it is this but there are other business factors, but nordstrom overall, how are they doing in

california overall? annie: yeah, they are expanding in other parts of california so obviously malls and department stores have had a lot of other challenges apart from street conditions, a lot of malls have not been doing particular well and there has been competition from e-commerce and things like that, but nordstrom's is opening new stores and other parts of california, a new location in san mateo for example, so it's not that this company overall is on the brink necessarily in the state, but feel like their time in san francisco has come to a close. kristen: what is the reaction from the city? annie: we reached out to the mayor's office. they pointed to the mayor's efforts to improve the area and pointed to public safety initiatives, pointing to officers stationed at the mall, computed the ambassadors, things like that, but the mayor's

office pushed back on the idea they have not been working proactively with westfield mall and they said that there had been some planning around redevelopment efforts at westfield. they added some office space a few years back, but it sounded like those effor died, so they push back on the idea that the city had not tried to help. kristen: so i guess when you lose a big tenant like that, who will come in? are there prospects for filling that space that nordstrom's occupied and the other spaces that are not empty? annie: yeah, well, so there is still blooming deals -- bloomingdale's was that there is another department store. i think the consensus is that this will be a particularly, could be a particularly difficult space to fill. it is a unique space with multiple floors, a very large space over 300,000 square feet, so it will not be easy to find a new tenant.

there are longer-term questio mall and the other retailers in the area as well but i. kristen: all right. thank you so much f on to share your latest repginkrisr story or more of the the san francisco standard's other original reporting on the website. sfstandard.com bring you more segments feed during their journalism. look for that twice a week right here on getting answers at 3:00 p.m. new it is clear that major retailers are struggling with theft and other issues in the bay area. what about small family-on businesses? a look at the specific financial challenges they face, the president and cofounder of hello alice, a free platform design or end by smart business owners would be

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and broccoli pancakes, and broccoli ice cream, aw wi sms. -daddyroccoli pancakes, go to las vegas with you and mommy tomorrow. oh, are you sure? are u sure you don't want to go, it will be so much fun! kristen: think small is what

local businesses want you to do during national small business week. joining us live as elizabeth gore, president and cofounder of hello alice, a company a company helps businesses launch and grow. she shared specific struggles that small businesses based on ways to succeed. it's so good to see you. elizabeth: thank you for having me. kristen: what is small business week? elizabeth: it is all about celebrating our community. most small business owners are your family, neighbors and the folks down the street. if you think about it, they are providing grocery stores, childcare, accountant, local dr., and it is important we think of them as the fabric of america and walk in those stores and shops mall. kristen: what is hello alice and what is your role in small business week? at elizabeth: we serve 1.5 one million small business owners in this country, ensuring they have

equitable access to capital and all the technical assistance they need to run their business. kristen: how do you connect them with those resources? win we came in and ask what your physical location and industry and specifically we will help f youeqind capital. we also assure women and people of color, eight u.s. veterans in the lgbtq+ community have an equal shot. equitable is the key word here to the operational capital they need. kristen: is this something you started during during the pandemic? elizabeth: you know, we have been around seven years, actually. i will say the pandemic brought i think a further awareness and passion for small business owners in this country to understand how critical they are. i am also happy to say that even though we are in a tough

economy, we have some more small businesses starting in this country, so as you think about where you shop and what services you seek out, remember how important it is to strengthen your community. one of kristen: the biggest challenges for any small business is getting capital, right? i know you have some key points that you wanted to touch on. capital is difficult and people are having to rely on personal savings, right? elizabeth: it is. 89 percent small business owners are nervous about capital right now. that is in the form of bank loans are their own cash flow with receipts. too many small business under psych utilizing their personal savings and personal credit, which we don't like. we'd like to stick with that business-focused capital, so one of the best ways to help them is to think about the local banks and credit union supporting these small businesses but most of all shopping with them.

kristen: in terms of limiting capital, we have another graphic that shows data from your survey. 89% say access to capital is limiting growth? elizabeth: yeah, it is tough right now and with the bank up people, things are tightening and they are getting harder to receive those loans or cdiret a business that helps small businesses really look at their score and how is my financial and cash flow doing so we can help them apply for loans or even say hey, you should not be applying for anything. you are good to go. your cash flow is enough. finally, we offer a great way to get an undiluted capital. seconds we have left would you offer to small business owners in the bay area? elizabeth: to be really smart with your cash flow, stay tight iterate as customers change behavior, and finally go online and file for the support you need. kristen: is now the time for

growth or just survival? elizabeth: i always say it is time for growth. i will be honest. if there is an opportunity, go after it, market your customers and go elizabeth gore, hello alice elizabeth:. thank you for having me. kristen: you can get our live newscast breaking news and weather and more with our abc 7 bay area streaming tv app on apple tv or google tv, fire tv, and roku. this search abc 7 bay area and download i

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kristen: thank you for joining us today for getting answers. we will be here every weekday at

3:00 to answer questions with experts from around the bay area. i was see you at 4:00. >> david: tonight, several developing stories as we come up to deploy troops to the southern mexico. president biden's administration sending troops to the border, with title the fact that multiple stabbings near uc da uc davis, including a student days after graduation. what authorities are saying. a major strike affecting many of your fav