bellevue. test . tonight, the largest wildfire in state history continues to rage. a look at why it's proving so destructive and why it's to blame. and rent control and what proposition 10 would do to expand it across state. also, we hear from a startup ceo about winning over consumers by ditching brandlabels. hello and welcome to "kq newsroom." we begin with wildfires. earlier this week the mendocino complex fire,se compriof two blazes, became the biggest fire in california history. california firefighters are currently battling 17 wildfires across the state including the

carr fire with weath-- fire whe people have died. the ferguson fire started four weeks ago and has led to the indefinite closure ofte yosem national park during peak tourist season. we' only halfway into this year's fire ason, and it may be on track to be the worst on record. joining me n to discuss this are fire scientist brandon ollins and publisher of "the mendocino voice," kate maxwell, via skype. thank you for being here. >> sure. >> kate, can youive us an update on how things are going in mendocino and what progress firefighters have made in recent days? >> sure. so the fires have slowed in recent days which is a big relief f people here in mendocino and lake counties. a lot of the mandatorycu eions have been lifted. a lot of the advisory evacuation vs. been down grade - evacuations have been downgraded so people have been able to return to their homes. the rive fire, t fire primarily to the south, has slowed in growth.

and there's been a slowing of growth of the ranch fiha which been active up until this week. things are looking good on that front. some good news. redwood valley in mendocino was devastated last year by another deadly fire.d' kinvestigation found problems with evacuation orders and communations in that case. how have things compare this year? has it been a better situation? t the fires in the fall were terrifying becauey started in the middle of the night in a fairly ral community that is populated, but people weren't able to get out quickly or be notified in time. i think one significant diffence this year is th most of the evacuations have happened during the day. people are a lot more alert and aware about how to recei emergency evacuations, and the local agencies have been really doing a good job about trying to get that information out to everyone as quickly as possible. there has been a shift, but

people remain on edge after the incident. >> terrify, second year in a row. brandon, you conduct researchon forest management, study these things. and i know in politics, there's talk in sacramentot in rec weeks around issues like fire suppression and thend history how that's sort of fueling these bigger blazes. is that a fair characterization, i guess, to start? >> sure. it is. there'sertainly a component to fire suppression itself and the fact that it's sortof removed one of the regulating mechanisms for fuels and vegetation development. there's other aspects, as well. >> yeah. talk about this. i mean, how much of what we're seeing now in your mind is the result of climate change and drought, and sort of some ofhe extraordinary conditions, and how much of it is because of what we have or haven't done in terms of forest management and other, you know, policies? >> you know, it's hard to put a number that, of course. but i would say, you know,

there'sob ly equal parts there. just for simplicity. you know, the fact that throughout the state we're pushing probably 100 years in many areas for fire supsession, tha quite a bit of time for accumulation of fuel and again for regeneration of other vegetation, as well's so the no doubt that that's fueling it. the climate aspect of it is real, a well. yeah. and your mind, i mean, we hear a lot of talk i think espially ong republicans that part of this is due to environmental regulations and challenges whenn people do to do this vegetation management. do you think that the state needs to be taking a lead and changing some of the policies? >> i think they are. in some ways it's happening now, it's probably not happening quickly enough. but it's bei recognized that there is -- that's a hindrance to doing some of the treatments that we need on the landscapes. >> kat int to turn back to you. you were there this week when senator -- u.s. senatoramala harris visited one of the fire

zones. i know she calle f more federal help both around fighting fires and paying for that but also the forest management issue. give us a sense of what she said and how hopeful she is that thl fedevernment will come through on that. >> you know, senator harris was in middletown yesterday, and she stopped by one of the evacuation service is and lked toeople in lake county. many of whom have been evacuated multipl times over the last couple of years and also with the firefightersreth and you know, one of the things that she emphasized was that federal funding is really essential in order to combat fires on this scale. this really is the new normal. and california has put a o lot money into fighting these fires. she also brought up the f need local control in terms of wild land management. beyond getting more federal moneys into these regions, i think she emphasized the need to listen to the expertise of the-

wildfirfirefighters and the agencies here on the ground in california who have been dealing with these things and also have a lot of formation and knowledge about how to do better wild land management year round, sort ofbothcontrolled burns and also how to take care of those natnal forests. >> of course a double-edged sword. i know we've also seen locals allow building in areas that are very dangerous fire zones we have a fei minutes left. nt to touch on the donald trump tweets, our president tweeted this week, basically blaming environmental policies around water for these fires.is brandon, that a fair characterization? seems not so much. >> awell, you kno with many of those, there's little bit of truth in there. but you know, to put the blame solely on that, of course, is not probably accurate. >> what we're talking about, -ate, i know is whether there's enough fire water to fight these fires, you said earlier there's been a l of conversation about the tweets in mendocino. what are you hearing from folks there about the president

characterization? >> you know, i think politic in mendocino don't always break down neatly along party lines. onnected to feel the landscape, and they care about drought and water management policy. but i think there's also a lot of concern for people who can see the wild lands in their back yards or who are living in the forest and can see how the fire season is getting longer, and how water reserves are drying u in a way that is not necessarily directly linked to water policy. so -- >> yeah. water is obviously -- always a controversial issue in california. we saw already sf some movement by federal officials to use those around oulicy. dohink this is something e federal government could use to undermine environmental regulations in alifornia other or do you think it's a one ofom the president? >> i think there are enough safeguards in place now that we're noing to really be able to surk imvent a lot -- circumvent a lot of protections

from the en ronmental standpoint. i guess what i'd like to see is us work within the bounds that we have right n to just expand our efforts. i don't think that we're solely limited right now by the regulation itself. there are -- there's enoughwe can do right now even with existing regulations. >> sounds like what you're saying ishat it more a will and the funding than policy changes. i know, you know, in sacramento, they're debating a lot o policy changes. i mean, is there one thing you think that lawmakers should be doinghi year? >> i will honestly like to see a push just toward basically movement on treating more acres. i mean, i know that seems like a simplistic sort of awer, but think we know enough now -- from the science and een from the land management perspective to move forward without, you know, cause for concern that we're going to do soblthing ter i think we can just push forward and learn along the way as opposed to getting it all right before we get going. >> we're going to leave it there. randon collins from u.c berkeley, thank you very much.

and kate maxwell from the "mendocino voice," we appreciate you both joining us. this november, california voters will decide the fate of b 11llot measures. one of them, proposition 10, couldx vastlynd rent control by letting cities cap the rent on any re,dential proper even new ones. proponents argue that the measure's needed to address the state's housing shortage and high costf living. opponents claim prop 10 would discourage new development, lead to more evictions, and take rental units off the market. joining me now with analysis are kq politics and government reporter guy rsarotti. tenant right attorney, overseas tobner who supports proposition 10. and debra carlton, senior vice president of the california apartment association who opposes the measure. thanks for joining me. >> than tyou. nk you. >> thank you. >> let's start, i want you to sort of lay w outat would proposition 10 do, and as importantly not do >> let's start that. i think if proposition 10 passes it wouldn't put rent control in every city in california felt what it would do is letcities

give the power back to cities to make that decision. so cities that haven't been ablo put in place rent control would be able to if prop 10 passes. tihen there are the cies that have historically had rent control back in the day. a hand in the bay area. they would be able to expandel are e rent-control -- expand rent-control laws. there are things banned by the ate for thepast decades because of cost of hawkins that could be repealed by this. two things th people are focusing on -- number one, around single-family homes. annot be rent controlled currently. condos cannot be rent controlled currently. and also when a tenant moves out of a unit, land lords currently can then hike up the rent. all those things would be banned by if propotion 10 passes. >> really opening up a lot more options to citi who choose to exercise them. before we move to the other panelists, who put this on the balt and who's putting money into both sides? >> the yes side is being driven by the aid health care foundation. this is based in l.a. they've taken on big ballotia inves around prescription

drug prices, state and local slow-growth measures. they're the big financial backers. they put in $ million to the campaign last week. g they're stillng to be expected to be outspent byhe side. we have developers up and down the state opposing this measure. >> so joseph, you represent tenants who are e beingcted and having troubles with landlords. tell me why you're in favor of the m isure. >> thi about giving control back to localities. the -- it's created problems for localities and frauin rent control. and it's taken a lot of units out of theus rental ng stock that otherwise would be in the rental housing stock because of tic and kopd conversion. >> -- and condo conversion. >> you think this would help the tenant. you have another position. why ishis a bad idea in your mind? >> well, you know, the legislature undersood back in the '90s that this was neededec se there were -- we call them extreme forms of rent

control. that is cities weremposing it on single-family homes. they were imposing it on new consopuction. and ty owners were getting out. each in berkeley, we -- even in berkeley, we lost about 3,0 single-family ownehomes because owners said i'm not going to work under this system. if prop 10 passes and turns it back to the city, i think we'll ly see it again. we're already seeing owners getting out of the market. this will be worse. >> is vacancyhi controlled was mentioned, the ability to essentially hold the price when somebody movout, is that the biggest fear, would you say? >> that's certainly a big concern forus. that's a line for us. vacancy decontrol means that an owner maybe had a tenant ie pl for historically long time. so they may be below the in san francisco, you can't raise your rents, but 60% of the consumer -- can't raise the rents above 60% of the index. they couldamove it to theet or whatever the market will bear. >> it seems like you're saying the same b thing on opposite sides. that you feel like this wouldlp

enants and deborah's saying this could hurt them. how do you -- what do you see as the benefit ofnt control? >> regarding this notion that we'll see ereme represent control, that's just not true and not the reality. i think it's mostly a scare tactic. that's a scary word, extreme rent control. that's an industry word. and the reality is, is that cities and counties can't even pass vacancy control. they can't en administer vacancy control statutes. berkeley had vacancy control, and they spent half a million dollars in the 1990s to defend their vacancy-control ordinance. there's lots of litigation surrounding vacancyo con all landlords are allowed to come back and ask for a fair return. and they're entitled to a hearing. the hearings are expensive, they last three days. i've been litigating in vacatnc control for the last 20 years in hoebl home contracts. it's -- mobile home contracts. it's not going to come to reality. the fact of the matter is that

for 20 years, cities and counties had the opportunity to pass thecatioyvacancy-control statutes and didn't. there are places that will probably have vacancy corol like berkeley or santa monica, but the larger cities andotion that extreme rent control will proliferat happen.ot going to >> joe's talking about the politics of this which leads into why this is on the ballot to begin with. i guess to start, can you explain what's happened or not hapned in the legislature over the last 20-some years? and also do you think it's realistic that a lot of cities will be rushing -- i mean it seems like there would be a fight at the local level on any attempts t change whatever happens. >> right. i think it's been at the legislature a lot of not happening. we saw earlier t week an attempt to repea the cost of hawken fail. and this is the initiative system. you know, i think a lot of lawmakers in sacramento might be willing toeform rent-control laws, maybe move buildings in on a rolling basis. h

weept do we don't have this. you repeal it or keep the status quo, all or nothing at als thar initiative system. as to what cities would do in reaction, i think there's a lo of uncertainty. you have -- berkeley has been the only city in the bay area to move forward and kd of lay out a plan and say if prop 10 passes, there is what we would do. we would move buildings 20 years and older into rent control. we'd bring back vacancy controls, other cithere's a lot of uncertainty. >> deborah, do you feel like in some ways theta real and development industry brought this on because of how hard any attempts to change this have reen fought in the legislature? >> there was ne conversation or the ability to have a conversation about a middle ground or a compromise. the proponents of thes bill ab-1506 said to repeal or nothing. we never were able to have the conversation which ithink would have been more beneficial than going to the ballots. >> the realtors are one of the

biggest spenders sacramento. they fought any attempts to change this. in hindsight,o you think that's what led us to the situation political? >> perhaps, but1 5506 was the first real attempt. we hadn't seen it before because this had been in place for 20-some-odd years. it's important that we have new construction. and unfortunately, we fear we're going to see less of it if this proposition passes. >> joe, what do you thin would actually -- you think vacancy control you don't see as likely in a lot of places. what do you think would happen sort of in a local level if this passes? >> i thinkhe reality is -- in big cities, we're going to see single-family homes and condos return to rent control which is important for local communities. i've been in tenant rights for 20 years. during the first dot com boom we saw displacement. people just moved down the reet in san francisco and oakland. now we're seeing people movi b

out of t area, stockton, people of color. our see it has been gentrified and this will return a huge amount of units to rent control to people in the city. >> you see thatdifferently. if this does fail, what do you think needs to happen -- a housn california. >> we do. what we've been working on in thelegislature, obviously we will argue it's about supply. we have proposition 1 that's on the ballot. that's to bring $4 billion to affordable housing. rent control, remember, there's no means testing. landlord will still have the ability to decide who's in the unit. a saw in the '70s undertr me forms of rent control gentrification because owners get to make the decision. because there's no means sting and y to determine who's in those units, you know, the owner has a choice of the y who drives the bmw or the person can re not really sure who pay the rent going forward. you'll take the sure bet. i think that's most unfortunate because we've never been able to

talk about means testing. >> do you want to respond at all? >> i don't know how means testi could evenbe carried out. a landlord will pick a wealth tenant. in reality, i don't think it can ply out -- can play out in any way. there's no doubt that rent l keeps people housed and keeps people low when it's not perverted by ste statute. costa hawkins is one of those ways and municipalities that administer rent-contro statutes. the l effect allows landlords to manipulate the system to take units out from under rent control. for years we've been seeing the d. you might remember the landlord that raised rent to $8,000 on the lady with cancer -- >> my nrhood actually. >> in burnall heights, exactly. we see landlords committing fraud to do fake transfers toat rees and convert to condominiums when they're not clowed to becausedominiums are exempt from rent control.

rent control works in the perfect form. the state statutes have perverted this. this proposition 10 is an opportunity to give control back to the municipalities, to let th decide how their citi will look. >> i think you have a different point of view on what tkengs he acts have done to the market. can you briefly tell us your response to joe? >> sure. act.entioned the ellis that state law says you can't stop a property owner from going out of business. unfortunately, under strict foreign policies. rent control, owners leave. and with, again, if prop 10 passes, strict forms of rent control, owners have the ability to go out of business. and the smallom and pops who have in most cases less than ten units t whichat is a large majority of our populaion in california, we unfortunately believe they will leave. and we saw thale in ber in the '70s. we lostbout 3,000 single-family homes. and we think that's what's going to happen again.ll theell their homes, and tenants are going to gets an eviction notice instead of a --

to get an eviction notice instead of a rent reie. that's nfortunate. >> thank you very much to all of you. >> thank you. turning now tobusiness. branlis is an e-commerce startup base in san francisco. it got its start in with the mission to over quality product at a low cost. inventory includes a broad range of necessities from food to beauty supplies to office supplies, even with a price tag of $3. hear more about her company, sharkyder and ceo tina joins me. thanks for coming in. >> thank you very much for having me. >> so everything atrandless is $3. very low. tell me what kind of products we're talki about. >> oh, my gosh. first of all some are two for three, some are three for three, to be clear. yes. the whole idea w to create a simple, organized, edited assortmatt of the things t you love from the snacks, whether they are all non-gmo,

mostly organic, lots of vegan, lots of gluten rfree, chips to crackers to cookies, you name it. and then in the essentials, so organic spices oregon ganic all-purpose flours andbaking mixes. extra virgin organic olive oil from .ita organic coconut oil. >> and beauty products -- >> we have cle beauty. everything doesn't have the ings you don't want, no phthalates, not animal tested. personal care, toothpaste, essential oil, mouthwash -- >> ho do you keephe price so low? >> it's funny you said wee the ant anti-brand. we're not really, but we're redefining what it means to be o brand bas truth, based on authenticity, and being in direct relationship with the people we serve. that direct relationship is actually how we manufacture. so we create all these extraordinary products for brandless, and we ship them rectly to ourdistribution centers. then we ship them to you.

so all those intermediate steps that you currently have to go through, that you're not even aware of, by the time you pull something off of a shelf, it's taken a long road from where it s created, and the markups and all of that makes e cost so much more expensive. >> was there a particular moment that sort of drove you to create this brand? you've been in business forwh a le and done a lot of other things. they're different from ahis. >> i would say it's interesting -- it started with me co-founder. we decided that we actually wanted to change the world month way.own small, humbl we were doing other things at the time but said let's carve out the time and the space toly actuigure out what's broken and what we want to fix. i came from building communities. i came from buildin commerce and media and direct consumer igital.nces, all and he came from creating consumer package goods products, t said, w if we were to like fuse it and build a community

methat's based on ing bigger than anything that we sell. the whole idea that we can democratize access to better things at fair prices for everyone. and so we set off to do tha and it only been a year. we celebrated our first birthday a year ago. >> happy >>birthday. hank you. >> you kind of touched on this, but call yourself a social capit capitaliv i how importa -- capitalist. how important is it from a business perspective, too, to have a company aimed at broader good? that's not just -- i know you guys give money to feeding programs -- programs for feeding folks when you buy something. >> yeah. we build brands for profit and for purse. oftentimes, people will put purpose as a campaign, or they'll do it when they're profitable or do it as aone-day event. profit and purpose is built into everything that we do. and it's critically important to who we are and what our community stands for.ar weer with feeding america, there's 41 million people in this country that i hungry every day. and feeding america is the largest hunger relief organization in this country

with the broadest networkf food banks. when you check out at brandless, will purchase aal through feeding america in your honor because we believe that the i doin life is what matters. and we don't washington capitals for giving tuesday. t everme you can do a tangible act of kindness is how brandless rolni. our comm is always doing things. as we celebrated our first anniversaren we'd already gi away over 1.6 million meals. >> wow. ndu have a lot of experience as an entrepreneur executive. you co-founded ivillage, at the estime, the la online community for women. you are presidentf baby center. how's the business landscape changed as a woman in tech and business broadly? >> it's funny, but i never really identified as a woman or a man in terms of who i was as a leader. i'm tina. i have my experience, my passion. i'm also a mom. i'm also a friend. i'm also a sister. i'm lots of things.

when i show up at work, i'm a leader who's there to build an extraordinary business. and i don't think of it as -- it's a female-run business, it's a business that fully expresses the commitment and passion of the people that co work for us. and the movement that we're building. and so i think l thendscape has changed in that having that real seat at the table something that's very important. i represent not only my own business experien but also my personal experience. and my, you know, 89% of the purchasing in this c is done by women. >> right. >> so the idea that women wouldn't have a seat at the table for any consumer siness, let alone any business to begin with is kind of crazy. i don't think about it as, oh, i'm a woman, therefore. i think i'm tina, an this is my experience. and i don't waoe laned or given an advantage -- to be labeled or given an advantage asother than skills andon and what i'm building and executing. >> the experiences you bring to it -- >> absolutely. that's because of what i've accomplished. not just because of, you know,

what profile or cohort i fall into. >> right. what would be your biggest piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? >> i would say always be your authenc self. authenticity scales. bring smarr people around you that complement your skill set. and complement what you can bring to the table. always make room in diversity and inclusion --'s not just rout color race or ethnicity. it might be about style. it might be about approach.o and not everybody has the same approach to things. >> right. >> as an entrepreneur, pa of ur job is to sort of convene a diverse set of voices, a verse set of experience, and a diverse set of opinions. and surround yrself wit people who actually want to stay with you and your movement for the long game. >> fabulous. thank you very much for coming? >> thank you for having me. you can more at oo kqed.new

thanks for joining us. ♪

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