an asian american back to school book aims to teach us all a lesson about the importance of identifying people correctly. but first, does the bay area

have a pedestrian safety problem ? as we learn about another deadly crash in the south bay, one east bay city is taking action to get people to slow down. you're watching getting answers. i'm kristin xie. oakland officials are hoping slower speed limits will cut down on crashes and potentially save lives. but oakland is not the only city dealing with pedestrian safety issues in san jose. a man was hit and killed while crossing a street this morning. the city's second pedestrian death in just three days. and it comes during california pedestrian safety month. joining us live now to discuss oakland's latest efforts to improve safety and walkability is council member noel gayo. councilman gallo, thanks for your time. >> thank you. thank you for the invitation. >> definitely. i mean, we have something new going on in oakland. in fact, we have video of a new reduced speed sign unveiled just today. tell us about this new initiative. >> well, you know, this is long overdue and certainly for a number of years we've been

trying to promote the speed limit being 20mph down our major corridors, not just surrounding our schools, but at 11 sections of oakland that where we're experiencing a high level accident, accidents of. you know, grandma, grandpa or children walking the streets. and so we're experiencing at least, you know, two oaklanders are being injured die and crossing our sidewalks. so we're trying to reduce the speed like the neighboring cities have done. you go to 20mph throughout the whole city. and so we're trying to not only reduce the speeds because now within our major corridors like fruitvale, we have bike lanes. so we added crosswalks. and at the end of the day, there are a number of us that, you know, are driving without our driver's license and some are just driving recklessly . so i want to be able to get it

down to 20mph. but at the same time, have the motorcycle officer from the police department and the highway patrol more pressing in our streets to enforce the speed limits that we do have, like we used to do in the past? >> right. right there are so many facets to this. right. because obviously, if you change the rules, but nobody's enforcing the rules that may not get you the results you want. okay. so if i understand it, this is a reduction from 25 to 20mph. so by five miles per hour in the business corridors, i think 11 of them. for those unfamiliar to tell us where they are, well, they're primarily in east oakland, in central oakland, and here in the fruitvale area, where, you know, the accident rate is really high. >> and at the same time, we do have many folks that are driving without driver's licenses in our streets. and you know, going through a red light. well, that's no big deal anymore. so we do need to enforce the law

now and make it very clear that 20mph is the speed limit. but not only the enforcement, but also we will be installing license plate readers, cameras throughout the business corridors. and this is a demand by our business community. uh- they just they're looking for safety to do on their streets to attract customers. >> can i just really quickly before we get into the business end of things, is there data that suggests that the reduction of the speed limit by five miles, if you can get cars to slow down a little bit in those areas where there's a lot of intersectional use between cyclists, scooters, pedestrians and cars, that it really does make an impact. well you know, other cities have proven that it does cause and but not only does reducing the speed, but it motivates city government to provide the law enforcement to enforce the speed limit and not

only through the use of cameras now located in our business intersection zones, but improving the crossing lights, improving the crossing walk and , you know, having more presence of the police department in motorcycle as well as the highway patrol has already committed to being on our streets and providing the citations, overrunning the speed limit. can i just ask you, it sounds like you have a dual goal here, that it's not just about pedestrian safety, although that's certainly a major part of it. but also to bring more foot traffic back for businesses that are hurting. can you talk about how this plays into that? well you know, clearly there's there was a study presented to me today as a matter of fact, that clearly the residents s in oakland are completely dissatisfied with the safety. >> that's happening here in oakland and the business community are completely dissatisfied with the elected body and the delivering the lack

of more officers patrolling their streets and their you know, this is a top priority as an emergency tsay and we need to address it right now. my children cannot walk to school and walk back home from school. mom and dad have to drive them in and drop them off and pick them up. and so forth. so but oakland needs to get its act together and make our streets not only safe, but also clean. right >> as you mentioned, the businesses, of course, you know this that about 200 of them have committed to shutting down tomorrow, taking part in a protest strike, if you will, to really call attention to their demand, saying that it hasn't been a hospitable place for businesses. what would you say to those folks who are striking tomorrow? >> it's too bad that we have to do that. there are some businesses that i've spoken with today that may be closed down for an hour or two who uh- then there are some that will be closing all day and certainly, i mean, right now, they need all businesses need all the help

they can get and customers and they would like to stay open all day long. but they believe this is the only way that city government, from the mayor to the council and city employees, will understand and get the message that we need to do better when it comes to safety. >> right. and i heard some of the things that the city is implementing. right. i think the mayor today announced 300 new cameras, something you just mentioned as well. and of course, we've gotten your city has gotten some chp assistance as well. what more do you think can be done? well i think we need to elevate the number of police officers within the city of oakland. >> we've reached out to the sheriff department. i mean, we're all traveling these streets from the highway patrol. the sheriff and the police. and i'm paying all their salaries as a taxpayer. so we there needs to be greater cooperation. and certainly we going through this emergency that we have. you know, we've been doing a lot of talk here from the mayor down to

the council for many years. and but we need to get our act together because we are losing residents. we are losing businesses. and at the end of the day, it's really how do we protect our children so they can have a bright future. and so let's let's talking and more action. that's what they're asking for. >> well, i mean, if you want to do things like more police officers, more cameras, things like that, certainly you need money. but the city missed out on applying for a state grant worth millions of dollars, possibly. have you pinpointed culpability yet? and i guess also more importantly, beyond that, moving forward, what are you going to do to make up for that lost money? >> i was in sacramento, passed last week, you know, meeting with different with our lobbyists. that does a thompson and associates that the lobbyists for additional resources to the city of oakland grants and so forth did meet with the governor's office and went even to the office of the correctional department that you know where we missed out, missed

out on that opportunity for funding. we did communicate with the administrator and hopefully that's an action within government, within the city of oakland, that we drop the ball and didn't submit the complete application to receive that money. and we have many other grants that are available according to the governor, that we can enough from the smash and grab and other opportune entities where we can make up the money that we lost within that application for the retail theft. and so we're going to keep at it at the federal level and at the state level, making sure that we do submit our applications. all right. >> oakland city council member noel gallo, district five council member, thank you so much. really appreciate your time. thank you. >> thank you. >> up next, how are san francisco restaurants faring? we're going to go across the bay bridge there for you as the long time establishment downtown shuts its doors. we're looking into the trend to see if it's specific to downtown or a citywide problem. we'll get

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for 14 years. the owner says the level of business is, quote, unsustainable, since there's just not enough people to serve in the financial district. city leaders say the business climate has improved since the pandemic, but they admit there's a lot more work to be done. so today we're looking at the numbers and asking, how is san francisco doing overall? well, joining us live now to answer that question and more is laurie thomas, executive director of the golden gate restaurant association. laurie, thanks for your time.

>> you're welcome. >> what is your reaction to barbacoa closing? >> well, i mean, obviously, it's very sad when we lose a small business like perbacco or i mean, sorry, like barbacoa, not perbacco, but it does, you know, it doesn't surprise me because we've seen all of us struggle over the past couple of years and especially, like you said, downtown, there's just not the foot traffic to sustain a business like that. >> right? so it's not just one business. a story, right? do you see a bigger trend here? and does that trend mainly keep to downtown or does it extend beyond that? >> well, you know, i think downtown and areas near the moscone center are certainly the most impacted. we know that right from from some of the drops in the convention business and the business travel and also to the out of the office. if there's not office workers, there's just not that foot traffic that that's looking for a place to dine. uh, we are still seeing restaurants like perbacco that are more like destination with expense

accounts and things that are that are still hanging in there and doing pretty well. but the more casual dining, no. and then across the neighborhoods, 2022 was a good year for a lot of us , but many of us are struggling this year. we're seeing sales. for example, i of rose's cafe and terzo over in the cow hollow area that are down about 10% from the same sales last year. year to date, the summer was super slow for a lot of people. >> interesting. okay. just real quickly, for folks perbacco and barbacoa, i think had the same owner right? perbacco is the more formal one and that's staying open. that's doing well. yes. yes so are you saying it's actually the lower mid or lower more casual restaurants that are suffering the highest end? >> so thanks for pointing that out. i think that there wasn't like, say, 22 and 2022. there was a lot of pent up demand. we were all were so eager to go out to eat, we could eat inside again. and then in 2023, you're seeing more business travel, more fine dining events, people more comfortable going and spending money for a nicer or a

nicer meal. and so that is doing better. the fine dining, the fast casual and then the mid range kind of where, you know, like your family dining restaurants are is really struggling. and that's again because we're just seeing so much less foot traffic and we're trying i know everybody's trying to bring visitors back to san francisco regional leisure and business, but we're we're still suffering and some of the layoffs affected that and the remote work effects that people are just not dining out as much. and spending that extra bottle of wine, things that are so critical to our business. we're just not we're just not seeing that. >> i see. right. and i just want folks to understand the vacancy rate a little bit, because data from commercial real estate shows the office vacancy rate in san francisco was 31% in july. it was only 4% pre-pandemic. that is, of course, a huge difference. that's a lot of lost lunch business. right. but other than that, hundreds of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that aren't literally coming into the city each day,

hundreds of thousands. and of course, when you have a dreamforce like we saw. right. i think restaurants didn't you all see a bump. but how long did that last? i guess afterwards, it just well, it lasts for the duration of the conference, right? >> i mean, it's combined to the duration of the conference. we desperately need. and i hope that that dreamforce we see dreamforce next year. we'd love to see that happen again. but we desperately need to reactive rate our spaces and get people out there dining. and part of it is that we all feel the cost of the inflation on the gas is super expensive. everything is costing more to the restaurants and to the consumer and people are naturally pulling back a little bit and that's really hard to make a restaurant with such small margins. restaurants maybe keep $0.03 on a dollar work and not go in the red. >> all right. so, lori, how do we lower the cost for restaurants a little bit? i do understand you guys have been ideating, right? well, a few months ago, i think you tried to get the city to waive some fees on parklets. i'm not sure if

that's what they did. >> i will say that. that is awesome. okay. yes so that did happen. and supervisor safai and the full board support it. it was we were going to have to apply to pay a lot of money like up to $4,500 for two parking spaces for the new applications for the new parklets to code that everybody's having to go through this change. and that was waived if you got your application in before, before the close of the city year, which is going to be, you know, june of next year, you won't have to pay those fees. so that's great. that's a that's a one time great thing. there's still some discounts on, you know, the sidewalk seating stuff is still under a lower price point. so little things like that really add up. but without customers with a business like a restaurant business where you have to staff the employees, where you have to buy the food, where you have to buy the wine, where you have linen service and cleaning service and all those things. you know, it's hard not to lose money when your sales are down. right? >> right.

>> so that's the that's the struggle. >> so where does the future lie ? right. in terms of the food scene? i mean, obviously, i think if you look at a couple of weekends ago, the sunset night market, a new concept being tried here that was so popular. right. and i think there were huge long lines for the food. so perhaps in the future there will be more vendors, more restaurants. is that a way to go? i mean, we talked about the high end, still doing well, but is this a potential solution? >> well, that's a different model, right? >> that's not like a model like say, like a neighborhood restaurant, like rose's cafe. you know, that's been there for 25 years. that's a different model if you're going to go into the business to just do events, say, outside lands and all the new events and the markets and stuff, that's more of a catering model, that's more of a like a food truck model that's not like a brick and mortar restaurant model. right. but i do think that many folks that still have brick and mortar restaurants are looking for other revenue streams. so that might be an additional revenue stream or a way to help do it. but you know, that would just bring in more

money with whatever those costs were. so, yeah, everybody's exploring what do we do? we know that the third party delivery apps, right, those are still very popular, but they take a huge cut from the restaurants. so that is a that is a cost that you pay to get that revenue in. >> yeah. >> and you don't get your bottle of wine via uber eats, you know, so definitely and san francisco doesn't want to lose its reputation as a food mecca, that's for sure. >> so i just say everyone should should try as much as they can to go out and dine in the restaurants or go pick up the food that they order. >> and i'm guilty of getting it delivered to me, too. i get it. but the more you can do that and the more you can have another glass of wine or, you know, something like that, that helps, too. >> all right. well, lori thomas with the golden gate restaurant association, thank you so much. >> thank you so much. all right. take care. take care. >> up next, what's in a name? a new york times best selling author answers that question with her new children's book aimed at helping kids understand why it's so important to say people's names correctly. she'll join us next when getting

multiple harvest and just in time to celebrate family and heritage. a new children's book say my name is a beautifullyrow illustrated picture book about six chdren from different backgrounds and the importance ofames. it's theatest book by author joanna ho, winner of this year's asian pacific american award for literature. joining us live in the studio right now is joanna ho. joanna, great to have you here. >> it's so nice to be here. >> so nice to see you and congrats on the book. thank you. i know it comes out tomorrow, but you've already been doing book signings and all that, which is great. but tell us about say my name. what's it about? why did you write it? >> sure. say my name is the story of six children from different backgrounds. so there's a chinese girl, a tongan girl, a persian boy, a mexican girl, a ghanaian girl and a missing one off the top of my

head. because you're on. oh, yeah. a dna. dna girl. and it's just about the stories and the meanings and the history behind their names and the importance of saying them correctly. >> so is it that they have names that are, i don't want to say difficult because obviously it's not two people of their culture. right. but to someone who is unaware, tell me some of those names and why it's so important. what you try to show in terms of why it's important to those children. >> sure. so the first child is a chinese girl and her name is xiao gang, and that's actually my chinese name. so it was given to me by my grandfather. and it means the first light of morning. another example would be o for khwaja tupo malawi. so that's a tongan name and it means love at sea. and the last name means like a fierce warrior of the south pacific. so those are just two examples. but i think the whole point of the book is really just to show that everybody's name has significant meaning. you know, we choose names really carefully and they not only have a meaning as words, but they have oftentimes a lot of history and connection

to our past and our ancestors. >> they are important to us and to our ancestors. yeah, but is it your experience, perhaps a personal experience, that there are people who don't care to learn them? >> oh, absolutely. so first, as a child, my mom's name is wan ling. wan ling and i grew up answering landline, you know, with the cord and people saying like wang ling, wang long and sometimes even wendy and so it was just like my first experience and like people really not making an effort. and then as an educator, i would often hear stories from students about teachers who just did not make an effort not only to say names correctly, but would even give students nicknames. so that they could avoid saying their name properly because they found it so difficult. >> wow. >> without the children saying, yes, please do that right. i wonder if you also did this in part for your boys. i know your mom. you said you've been a teacher as well. i know you wear many hats. yeah but in terms of your boys, how important is it? a boy and girl? yeah. how

important is this to them? >> i think it's really important for them to know. so they have their names are also really carefully chosen. my stepdad chose their chinese names, which are their middle names, and i want them to grow up feeling really proud of their heritage and who they are and all that. their names encompass this. and my hope is really beyond just my kids that all kids and all adults, all people will really their names and not feel like they have to change them to make them easier for other people to say. right, right. >> that's amazing. now, your work really runs the gamut. they're not all children's picture books. i also want to ask you about your award winning book for young adults, the silence that binds us. your debut book actually. right. and it's amazing that it hit bestseller rlly confronts a lot of things. the model minority stereotype, pipe pressure, mental health and suicide. really, it's heavy. but why did you want to tell that story? >> yeah, i grew up i went to school in palo alto and i wanted

to write a story that talked about talked about anti-asian racism and black and asian solidarity. this was in like 2017, before the pdemic, before it became a hashtag that people talked about more publicly. and i thought about my experience, his growg and going to high school. and then after i graduated, the suicide epidemic that happened in the community and the anti-asian rhetoric that came out as a result behind closed doors and sometimes very publicly. and so this was one way to really dive in to a story within this community where i live and explore all of these issues through the lens of a grieving family and how how we work in so many ways against systems that try to silence us, but that i hope that the hope is that through this story we can all understand that we have a lot of power to create change. that's a really important book and i do hope folks will check it out. >> but back to say my name to

wrap this up, what's your advice real quickly? we got to go. but for someone who's well-intentioned but maybe says your name wrong, like how do you say, by the way, i think it's just, hey, it's actually pronounced like this. >> and then for that person, i think the effort matters. just trying it really makes a difference. >> all right. author joanna ho, thank you so much for coming in. by the way, your website is joanna ho writes i love it. .com. thanks all right. a reminder, folks, you can get our live newscasts. breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area

by after the game. don't worry, you can still watch. abc7 news at four wherever you stream. and later tonight catch a special edition of abc7 news at 5 or 9 sorry, followed by wheel of fortune and jeopardy and don't miss abc7 news at 11 on world news tonight with davidr is coming up next. have a great day . tonight, the well-known senator indieted, pushing back, breaking his silence tonight. how he explains the wads of cash in his jacket. also, this relentless storm. now the newest concern from virginia up to new york. and the new storm we're watching tonight. first, a defiant senator dismissing growing calls to resign, amid federal corruption charges. authorities allegedly finding hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars, and a mercedes. how menendez tonight explains the cash, and