tonight on kqed newsroom. mayor london breed announced a new push to end open air drug dealing in san francisco. oprah book club offer author join us to talk about the east bay stories they are bringing to light. plus a close-up look at a 30 foot oakland mural. honoring the women of the black panther party. coming to you from kqed

headquarters in san francisco this friday, october 7, 2022. hello and welcome. this week san francisco mayor london breed called for more accountability for drug dealing. the residents need to support our police officers in their work to arrest criminals. bill scott and district attorney brooke jenkins said they are working closely together. to prosecute drug dealers while also helping people addicted to drugs. will this latest push make any difference? senior editor scott shafer who spoke with mayor briede here at kqed this week. welcome to the show scott. i remember december last year seeing mayor briede standingon the steps of city hall without outrage in her voice saying there will be more paris's police presence and we need to stop tolerating the bull crap.

that was destroying the city. everybody perked up and said she is taking this seriously. she is making operational changes. then it seemed like everything faded away. is there something different happening now? >> we have a new da. this is something that will be a priority for brooke jenkins. it's personal for the mayor. she had a brother that was struggling with drug addiction and is now serving a prison sentence and she had a sister who died. over 600 people died on the streets of drug overdoses in san francisco last year. that's down from the year before. >> more people have died in san francisco from drug overdoses than died from covid during the height of the epidemic? >> absolutely. it is something people see when they are walking around.

it's a visible problem. it's a tough problem to solve. they are throwing more resources at it. the mayor held a press conference with the police chief and the da. we are all on the same page. we are going to focus on this. make it a priority. it's easier said than done. >> there is chance some tings may look different. the da jenkins said we did not expect everything to change right away. >> no one is calling for a return to the war on drugs. how do you get at the source of the drugs? not the petty possession of people using them but dealing. >> let's turn to new poll numbers that came out. this is election season. the berkeley igs pull took a look at the sports betting measures. one in casinos and one online. can you talk us through how people are responding to the measures? >> these are two competing measures. proposition 26 would allow in

person betting on sports events at casinos owned by the tribes. also, a few horse tracks throughout california. support is low. 31% support and 42% no. you have to have above 50% support for something to pass. prop 26 is in big trouble. as is proposition 27. it would allow online betting úof sporting events on mobile phones and other things. that's doing even worse. 53% no and 27% yes. they have raised over $400 million for and against these two things. ironically people who have seen the ads are less likely to support the measures than the ones that haven't. all this money being spent on television is turning people off. people are tired of seeing all of these ads. >> when you say the huge number does not gloss over and make

this the most expensive campaign these two put together, the most expensive campaigns in american history? >> you might as well say world history. we are the only country that has campaigns like this. it's blown past all the spending records. these are big companies and the tribes have a lot of money. it doesn't seem to pay off with them. if anything it's counterproductive. >> let's look at another piece of polling. this is linked to the problems we are seeing here in san francisco. governor newsom has supported this. he brought this idea forward. it would allow judges the power to order housing or treatment for people who struggle with addiction or severe mental. >> this is an acknowledgment of what we have been doing in the

past is not working. úthis is s republicans agree on. 76% support overall among likely voters. that includes a large number. about 69% of republicans. they may support those for different reasons. nonetheless everybody agrees something needs to be done. this pass through the legislator with a lot of bipartisan support. it will take a while. the trouble for the governor and those who want to see a big change, it will take a while. seven or eight counties will begin to ramp up in about a year. san francisco will be one of the first counties. >> let's turn to another topic that so many of us are feeling. the pain at the pump. the gas prices here are inne. were talking about two dollars more for a gallon of gas in california than the national average. how is it so much higher than the rest of the country? >> we have higher standards for

emissions. one of the things that the governor has done is he is allowing gas stations to begin selling the winter blend. it's dirtier and cheaper. earlier that would ordinarily be the case. >> let's look at what he tweeted this week. gas prices are too high. 23 million americans will be receiving a tax rebate in the country. that would be this week it is happening. tell us about the money. >> the governor would like to link this to gas prices. it was intended by the legislature. to offset the cost of inflation. and targeted toward middle income and lower income folks in california. 18 million people that will be getting checks as ballots are landing. that money is from the surplus in the last year budget. that is money that may not be around next year. the revenues are coming in more slowly. it will help offset some of

these costs for will this impac are voting? >> it could. you have the battling narratives. republicans want to focus on gas prices and inflation in economy. >> before i let you go scott we have to talk about the big debate we have coming up. october 23. >> the only debate between the two people running for governor. they agreed to come here. we will co-moderate that debate. lots to talk about with them. they will have a chance to talk to each other and give voters a chance to see them side-by-side right before the election. >> thank you so much scott.

oakland has a long history of notable authors. fromgertrude stein and jack london in the early 1900s to amy tan and jack mance more recently. we are speaking tonight with two contemporary authors from oakland. clearly motley wrote night crawng. it is been selected as an opera book club novel. the city of oakland began to have an adult program last year. the other guest is the inaugural poet. leila joins us now. thank you for being in the studio with us. >> thank you for having us. >>let's start with the youth program in oakland. you were the poet in 2018. tell us about what you do as a youth poet? >> you do a lot. it ranges from performing at events all over the bay area. often galas in different fundraisers. where people ask you to go and

perform a poem and connect with audience and bring people in. people soliciting poems and just being a voice for the city. kind of sharing the perspective of youth. >> you have had a longer career than leila did when she started. as you have become the poet laureate for loveland. what you hope to do with this platform in the inaugural position you're in? >> it's a wonderful place to use my voice. i have a long artistic career. to be the inaugural poet gives me a louder microphone. and a bigger audience. it's a great place to use my voice. >> tell me how you got started as a writer? >> i started writing the minute i learned how to.

i have journals full of poems when i was six. i went into short stories and when i was 14 i wrote my first novel. it's always been something that felt natural to me. part of it is because i fell in love with reading. >> was encouraged by your family? >> they love books too. my dad is a playwright and a screenwriter. he always had a day job and would go home and write. i learned that writing is a passion in somethinyou do for yourself. >> what about you? when did you first come to the love of writing? >> a similar experience. i don't rememb being taught how to read and write. it seems like i have always read and i kept journals from a really young age. i was in forensics. from elementary school. i also share a love of reading and i am a voracious reader.

>> i don't know what forensics is. >> it is speech. it is oral interpretation. that was my initial lane. you would perform poetry. you would read and perform poetry. >> i want to stick with that for a minute. i want our audience to know more about you as well. you not only hold a phd in transformative education and change that an mfa in writing and consciousness. you are also a member of the alameda county hall of fame. you found it at the african theater company? the lower bottom plans. you've written several books and articles. one of the things i love learning as you go by the moniker word slinger. i am hoping you can sling some words for us here today on the

show. would you be all right with that? >> i would. if you would like to hear the whole piece you will have to wait until the press in san francisco drops its new anthology:. when we exhale my ghost will reset the doomsday clock. signaling creation and hope. i. the pendulum between right and wrong will have her hover. we except we will accept scarcity and how to suffer endlessly. fire and magnolias will fill the space as those things take.

we have rich peaceful wisdom. radiantly at rest. being when we excel. natre is the law of reciprocity is justice. jambalaya will be served. drumming will be allowed. we will dance late into the night when our souls are full. and we decompose all that ever came to eat the joint of another out right or in quiet violence with mines or movements in serial and aggressions. >> i feel that sense of exhaling a bit with that. leila what about for you as you hear this? >> poetry can transmit hope. it's vibrational and something you feel first. that is what makes it so

powerful. that was beautiful, thank you. >> what was your purpose when you read that particular section? >> it was a call for when we exhale. the thought of holding one's breath for a really long time. breath is a very black topic for the last few years. the absence of breath. i can't breathe. waiting to exhale. it goes back a bit. the idea of being able to take a full breath may that be the beginning of what freedom feels like. being able to take a full breath. >> you said that everything you do boils down to one conversation. i want to read a quote i heard from you. you said i'm interested in being fully human and thriving for everybody. and particularly in specially for black folk. how did that become your core?

>> all artists only have one conversation. they come at it from different perspectives. that is what was inscribed in the inside of me. i think, i work definitely in continuum of the black arts movement. i consider myself being engaged in ancestor work. i'm part of an organization that existed before i existed. i attempt to be a bridge. what comes next? i like to tell people i know what to do. i am doing what was whispered in my ear right before i took my first breath. i came with assignments. >> what a sense of purpose that

must give you as you navigate through life. does that resonate with you leila? did you feel like you have always own what your voice and your message in your purposes? >> i think it resonates with me. we are born into this world. was something we may not even know. i did not always know what my purpose was. that's because this world distances ourselves. from our core self. from the minute we are born. that is socialization and conditioning. that's what happens when you live in a world that doesn't value alignment with ourselves and with our most honest truth. once i found writing in books that i love, i came into this realization. i could break this generational silence. through words. >> it is certainly did that in your book night crawling. night krahling is based on a true story. that we know here in the bay

area very well. it was a sex scandal. which oakland and richmond police officers had inappropriate sexual relationships with an underage teenage girl named celeste co- op. that is how she is called. she has another name she was born with. you looked at the media coverage that was happening at the time and you did not like and what it was saying. you did not like how the story was framed. you broke night krahling and part of saying there is a different perspective here. can you tell us about what you saw that you did not like that fell out of alignment? and what you re hoping to do with your novel? >> i was 13 or 14 at the time that the case broke. the media. it was common conversation around her sexual exploitation. it was like let's focus on the police department and focus on how this may damage the

relationship. i remember thinking what about this girl. what about the thousands of other girls and women whose stories never make it to that level of visibility. partially because there is no were to report to besides the police themselves. i thought what does it mean to look beyond a headline. when a new cycle moves on how do we keep a live story of women and girls? particularly black women and girls that are so often in silence. >> i would love to hear if you could read a bit from your book as well and we can share that with the audience too. >> it's definitely a love story to oakland too. i will read the description about oakland.

this is with the main character and her best friend. she loops her arm around my shoulders and pulls me in. lifting her skateboard into the sky. ain't it beautil she shouts into the open air? i twist my head around to take it all in. the construction still aligns the alley. pinging would into more wood. i swear it's like the city is spiraling around us. skyline popping up a glorious portrait of windows. and wheels that do not have to be as large as they are. allie's arm around me makes me want to skip and lift my knees to the sky. the way that we sway together. oakland doesn't operate on a grid. the streets pulling us closer to the bay. to where saul melts with street and bikes turned to trucks that moan and thrust forward at every ligh they push us back toward the buildings. were shouts line the perimeter of the sidewalks. and with laying here i do not

bother to decipher what they are saying or who they are saying it too. just let the noise scatter. like chunks of asphalt off the road. i find my favorite murals. new swirls added to the background. borderedand tagged. >> it's so descriptive. those moments and the ways in which you have chosen to put some of those metaphors and pictures together. it seems you have made oakland, live in a fresh way to a place we all know and that you have loved for a long time. how did writing about oakland factor into your story? in terms of it being a character in itself? >> it was so important. we are often given a binary view of oakland. oakland has it dangerous crime- ridden city or as a new city and a newly desirable place to be. neither of those encompass what the city is, and the oakland i

grew up in. i wanted to capture that. i wanted to look at the vibrance of the city and the nuance. how you can love a place that doesn't always love you back. in writing this i hoped we could expand the ideas of oakland. that i think we hold in our cultural framework around the city. >> what about for you? how has oakland factored into your work? >> i live currently in the first community ever i lived in on purpose. i have a love affair going on with the idea of place. in continuity, and why we would pour ourselves into a place here. especially black people. the idea of communities being remade right before our eyes with gentrification. the fact that -- i look at the

fact i do a line in the sand here. i decided to call this home. i want it to be from here. i wanted to represent the bay in the town. i find oakland entirely worthy of all of that. it is storied and rich and emblematic of marginalized in red lines and spaces across the globe. it is the center of the unerse. >> what you have coming up next? tell me about the work that is in front of you still to do. >> oddly enough it is a great segue. an installation that considers space and development and what it means to be marginalized.

it opened in france. it is now installed in oakland. it is studio 17. studio 17 in oakland. i will be in both of those places. san francisco on november 2 and oakland on october 22. performing live. >> layla what about for you? >> i have events around the bay in the world coming up over the next few months. i am also writing. i working on a poetry collection that should be out in the next year. >> you were at college and you're taking a little break? some have been wondering where you went to school here in oakland as well. >> yes it became impossible to tour and be in college at the

same time. i had a foundation from art school to help me lean into my identity as an artist. >> layla motley. thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. >> thank you. >> tonight are something beautiful is in oakland. the west oakland mural project highlights the vital role women play in a revolutionary black panther party. let's take a look.

>> i feel empowered and inspired. i hope you do too. that is the end of our show for

tonight. you can find kqed newsline online or on twitter. you can reach me on social media. thank you for joining us. we will see you back herenext friday night. have a great weekend.

geoff: good evening. i'm geoff bennett. tonight on “pbs news weekend,” countdown to the midterms. with one month until the november election, judy woodruff joins us from madison, wisconsin with all the latest on the hotly contested race for senate. then, the nfl changes its coussion protocols, but do they go far enough? we hear from the doctor who discovered the brain disease cte, and his advice for the miami dolphins quarterback sidelined by head injuries. dr. omalu: my strong advice to him would be to hang his helmet, and cherish his life. geoff: and climate change in alaska. how warming waters are decimating salmon populations and forcing native people to change their way of life.