Biden Takes Leads In Pa., Ga., Putting Him On Cusp Of Electoral College Win

Speaker 1: 00:01 A divided America confronts the results of the election. Speaker 2: 00:04 It's going to take until this election is settled and well into next year. To really begin the hard process of healing. Speaker 1: 00:11 I'm Maureen Kavanaugh. This is KPBS midday edition. We'll hear about San Diego mayor. Kevin Faulkner's last big policy move. Speaker 3: 00:29 We have to grow as a city and we can't just take a NIMBY approach to leapfrog development. Like you see in, you know, Arizona or Riverside that never works. Speaker 1: 00:40 We can preview features, arts events, rain, or shine in San Diego. Stay with us for midday edition. Coming up next, Speaker 1: 01:00 Joe Biden is planning a primetime speech to the nation tonight, as his leads appear to increase in the battleground States of Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. The presidential election may be called in his favor by various news agencies as early as today. But that doesn't necessarily mean this election is over. Donald Trump has already launched legal challenges to the vote count and tensions are running high among some Trump supporters who believe the election is being stolen. Johnnie Mae is professor Carl Luna, director of the Institute for civil civic engagement at the university of San Diego and a political analyst. And Carl, welcome back to the show. Speaker 2: 01:41 Thank you for having me now Speaker 1: 01:43 In the weeks before the election, you joined a group of academics, warning about the potential for violence after this election, has that concern changed in any way? Speaker 2: 01:54 It's still a major concern because we don't know where we're going with this Marine. We brought together just in very short order, a couple of dozen people from elected officials, offices, uh, Sheriff's departments, uh, um, the ADL league of women voters. Uh, the union Tribune KPBS has been monitoring, looking at how can we share resources and information to help direct people's rightful concerns on either side of the political spectrum into effective political participation to avoid anything that could escalate into violence. Cause once it turns violence, you've ended the conversation. It's still a very limited threat. San Diego has been blessed if you will, that we've had very little disruption in around the country. There's been very little, really big overt disruption, but this is going to drag on this election for days, weeks, maybe months. And every day it does is the possibility for something to escalate. That's what we're trying to help our community come together to avoid. Speaker 1: 02:52 Trump has stated his belief that the election is being stolen and he will not concede do you that a dangerous situation for the nation, Speaker 2: 03:02 Certainly unprecedented and given the presence propensity for the way he sees the world. I basically see it as highly unlikely he's ever going to concede I've noon on inauguration day. If he is in fact lost the election, I don't think you'll get a concession even then, but sometimes he can be surprisingly gracious. So we'll have to see how that plays out, but statements like that can be taken by people who really don't have Goodwill in their heart as authorization to go out and start to seriously disrupt to cause significant issues across communities. You're seeing a little bit of that with people, with weapons, showing up outside of voting counting centers in a couple of places, uh, you don't want it to become widespread. You don't want protest and counter protest to erupt in a blood in the streets. As we've seen a little bit in a couple of cities on a smaller scale with recent protests. Speaker 1: 03:51 Now, Joe Biden has been making statements as well. He's been advising calm and patients and pledging to be a leader for the whole nation. Not just the people who voted for him. Can that message make an impact? Speaker 2: 04:03 It can have an impact to a degree with his own supporters. The problem is when people take to the streets, so they're not happy. And they run into people with that opposite viewpoint, you have to have good resources in every community available to reach out to leaders to say, Hey, talk to your people, keep people apart, let people express their opinions and don't let it escalate. Uh, it does help from the top down to have that as a common message. Joe Biden tends to come across like a nice cup of hot cocoa Trent urgent calm. The president of the other hand is more of a, more of a big red bull kind of urging action Speaker 1: 04:36 Should other national leaders be doing at this time? What kind of message should they be sending? Do you think? Speaker 2: 04:42 Well, historically in America there was only one message. Any, uh, political leader should be sending during the process of counting on election ballots. It is patience and it respect the system. Uh, the system is legitimate. Our democracy works and Hey guys, if we lose this election, there's another one in two years for the house. Uh, and part of the Senate for years for the presidency elections come around like taxi cabs was an Uber's. Uh, no one election determines the fate of anything. You have another chance at it. So chill a little bit until, you know, what's going to happen. Speaker 1: 05:16 Twitter is flagging misleading election information. Even now, when it comes from the president and Facebook is taking down groups, calling for violence, is that going to help keep violence from spreading? Speaker 2: 05:30 It is a contributor to help, but, and that's the problem that was social media. It can be both the cure and the disease. So many things are being posted so rapidly by a small portion of the social media ecosphere on the left, more of the violence apparently is being posted from people that would be clarified more to the heart rights. Oh, we'll see how that plays out over time. Uh, but you, you it's one thing to take it down, but even getting it out there in the first place, hundreds of, of views are going to occur. And that helps to build a sense of isolation, of separate communities. Seeing the world very differently. Those who were saying, Hey, we've got another election, like I'm saying, life will be okay. And then those will say, it's the end of the world. We better act now. And that will take out a section of the population and radicalize it, which is not what we want to see in a democracy. Speaker 1: 06:18 If the election is called for Joe Biden, the reality is we are still a divided nation. Is there any path for healing and reconciliation? Speaker 2: 06:28 There is Marine, but it's a long-term path. We didn't get to the situation of such a, a rigidly divided society overnight. It's been the product of 20, 30 years of some areas of the country doing Burwell, rural areas, and particularly not doing well. People feeling marginalized because of demographic shifts and then people living in communities, which are not very diverse, who then look at people who are coming from more diverse communities as somebody, they don't have a frame of reference with. In some ways I wish we could all just be ordered to get up and move around and reshuffle America. So we all live by other people because once you get to have somebody as your neighbor and get to talk with them, they may have political views that you don't like. They may come from a culture that you're not familiar with. Next thing you know, though, you're all sharing stuff on the backyard at a barbecue and you're living together as a community, but it's going to take until this election is settled and well into next year to really begin the hard process of healing for now. We're just trying to keep it from escalating as a nation. Speaker 1: 07:27 I've been speaking with professor Carl Luna and Carl. Thank you very much. Thank you, Maureen San Diego mayor, Kevin Faulkner wants one last major policy win before he leaves office. Next month, complete communities is a set of reforms to the city's development rules around housing and transportation. It's set for a city council vote on Monday KPBS. Metro reporter, Andrew Bowen says the goal is to build more housing in walkable, urban neighborhoods. Speaker 4: 08:02 We must change from a city that shops not in my backyard. The one that proclaims yes, in my backyard from a city of NIMBYs to a city of inmates, Speaker 5: 08:11 January 15th, 2019 with two years left in office mayor Faulkner decided to make housing affordability. The main focus of his fifth state of the city address. His ideas were big outside the coastal zone, no more height limits in areas served by public transit. Speaker 4: 08:28 I will deliver a plan to the council to authorize unlimited density for developments that include affordable housing and housing for the homeless. The most generous incentive in the state, Speaker 5: 08:40 His complete community's proposal does not quite match that lofty rhetoric. The program is optional and only applies to sites close to public transit where apartments are already allowed to participate. Developers have to make 40% of a units affordable to low and moderate income households. In return. The developer can pack as many apartments into the building as will fit. And the size of the building will be regulated by square footage of floor space rather than height. In other words, the taller, the building, the skinnier, it has to be Andrew. This is the buzz project. It's a mixed use project on the corner of 30th and be in golden Hill. Ramey. Cortez is a small-scale developer who supports the complete communities package. He's showing me his latest apartment building set to open to tenants in January. Uh, we have cabinets going in countertops and the next 30 days you'll see all the scaffolding pulled down. Speaker 5: 09:41 This project made use of the city's existing affordable housing density bonus program, which offers incentives. If developers can set aside a portion of their homes as affordable for low income households, complete communities is like that program dialed up to 11. Cortez says it would be another tool to help provide more housing for San Diego. If we're building housing in the right places, along transit and job centers, we have to grow as a city. And we can't just take a NIMBY approach to leapfrog development like you see in Arizona or Riverside that never works. And to meet our greenhouse gas goals, the only way we're going to be able to get there is to, uh, you know, cut down on carbon emissions and walk, bike, and use, you know, alternative modes of transportation. Transportation is another leg of complete communities building in the city's more car dependent neighborhoods would come with higher fees and those fees would pay for things like bike lanes, sidewalks and crosswalks in denser, more urban neighborhoods improvements in low income communities with less access to opportunity would get priority. Perhaps the biggest opposition to complete communities has come out of San Diego's volunteer neighborhood planning groups, Diane Caine represents LA Jolla on the community planners committee or a CPC at a meeting on Monday. She suggested complete communities is a Trojan horse for a massive rezoning plan. Speaker 6: 11:06 If you look at the maps, there's all of this, these disclaimers about how this isn't a result, that it is a result and the people who are whose parcels are being resolved, don't even know it. Speaker 5: 11:17 CPC chair, wildly Wolfpack of Scripps ranch said he thought it was unfair that a portion of the fees developers pay to build in his neighborhood would be sent to low-income communities. And he said, the process that began about a year ago was rushed. Speaker 6: 11:31 None of these plans should go forward until there has been sufficient consultation with community planning, groups and CPC, and that's still hasn't really happened. It's sort of been like pulling teeth to get anyone to bother, to talk to us Speaker 5: 11:46 Earlier in that same meeting planning department staffers spent an hour explaining recent revisions to the program, answering questions. They point to the dozens of workshops and presentations at public meetings as evidence they did enough outreach. The complete communities package has gotten mixed reviews from city council members they'll decide on Monday, whether it should become law. Andrew Bowen, KPBS news [inaudible]. Speaker 1: 12:16 This is KPBS day edition. I'm Maureen Kavanaugh. If you've been staring at a big red and blue map of America all week, it's time to change the picture on this weekend preview, we have a few local arts and culture recommendations to feast your senses on. Instead joining me to discuss this weekend's arts events is KPBS arts editor, Julia Dixon Evans, and welcome Julia. Hi Maryann. Thanks for having me new work from artists, Tom Driscoll is now on view at ice gallery in Logan Heights. What can we find and how can we view it? Speaker 7: 12:51 Ice gallery it's in the bread and salt complex. And they recently opened this new exhibition with work by address. Skull is a really established local artists and some of these works were made 15 years ago, but have never before been seen. And it also includes a brand new piece made with the gallery space in mind. It's not exactly site-specific that it was definitely made for that really cavernous space and Driscoll himself. He studied with John Baldessari and Bob Matheeney at Southwestern college in the late sixties. And his works really architectural, like these massive pieces for shooting from a wall or large columns and really vivid shapes and colors. I just really love the way he works with a wall, which may seem obvious for an artist, but it's not. And this is also his first show. Since 2012, ice is open for COVID safe, viewings by appointment, and this place uses this model all the time. So don't be shy. And also the gallery has huge front windows. So you can view it through the windows from the sidewalk night or day. Speaker 1: 13:58 So you can check out Tom Driscoll's new exhibition at ice gallery. Now through mid December, next up is a live stream of chamber music from Latin composers. Tell us about what the camarada ensemble has been up to. Speaker 7: 14:12 Yeah, they've just launched their new season and most of it is virtual. And this first program required as Dallas Diaz features work by four different composers and it's for fleet violin, Viola cello, piano, trumpet, bassoon, and percussion they're live streaming it tonight. It has worked by Andrews Martine, Miguel Del like ULA plus a really classical string trio from early 20th century, Mexican composer, Manuel Ponce, who is known as the creator of the modern Mexican song. I'm pretty excited to hear more from contemporary James M Stevenson's Mexican folk tale piece called mermaid of the volcano. And that's for trumpet, cello and percussion. Here's a segment that they posted on Instagram from their rehearsals. [inaudible] Speaker 1: 15:33 That's James M Stevenson's mermaid of the volcano performed by camarada. You can catch the live stream of the full program. Tonight at six, the Bonita museum is presenting a multidisciplinary exhibition of Filipino stories and film called scenic wentto what's on this weekend. Speaker 7: 15:55 Yeah, so there's lots to love about this program. The curators, Emma Francisco and Benito Bautista worked with the local Filipino community in advance. They put together stories and they even gathered work clowns and fabrics from, um, from the community for some of these in-person exhibitions. And the whole thing focuses on the art of Filipino storytelling, particularly in film and involves these multiple onsite installations at the banana museum. But there's plenty of virtual options too. If you can't make it out, they kick things off this weekend with their opening night screening on Saturday, it's written and directed by Bautista called Herana the search for the lost art of serenade Harana is the word for the type of song performed from balconies or for potential matches as serenade [inaudible]. And that's a clip from the trailer for the film. Herana, it's a pretty magical look at music in the Philippines and this serenade art form that the filmmakers trying to preserve Speaker 1: 17:45 How Ronna this search for the lost art of serenade screens online Saturday at 5:30 PM to kick off the Bonita museums, scenic window exhibition, and finally art walks return. Tell us about art walk at Liberty station this weekend. Speaker 7: 18:04 Yeah. So after a long break there, the first of their kind to try this socially distance COVID ready incarnation of an outdoor festival it's on Saturday and Sunday, it'll be a juried festival, um, showcasing about 150 artists from the region and across the border. You can find painting sculpture, photography, glass, ceramics, jewelry, and so much more. And they're also auctioning off some of these really incredible custom painted guitars to benefit art reach, which is a local arts education program. Non-profit and don't forget your mask, or you can buy an extra one there. They have a commemorative design by artists, Jen Giran, and don't forget an umbrella. Also, the organizers have said that it will be rain or shine. It costs $5 to get in, but kids 18 and under are free. Speaker 1: 18:57 Okay. Rain or shine. Art walk at Liberty station takes place Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM for more arts events or to sign up for our weekly arts newsletter, go to kpbs.org/arts. I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor and producer Julia Dixon Evans. Julia. Thanks a lot. Speaker 7: 19:18 Thank you, Maureen. Have a good weekend.