Scripps Health Says Some Patient Info Acquired During Ransomware Attack

Speaker 1: 00:00 Personal records compromised in the script's hand, Speaker 2: 00:03 There's a lot of value in stealing health records. I don't know that all of these organizations have properly accounted for the risks. Speaker 1: 00:11 I'm Jade Hindman with Maureen Kavanaugh. This is Katie. Yes. Midday edition, super sides are closing, and there's a new approach to vaccinations. Speaker 3: 00:28 It seems like a lot of our health systems are really quite focused on trying to deliver as many vaccines as possible within, uh, the normal, uh, confines of, of doctor's offices. Speaker 1: 00:41 Changing the inspection system could gut nursing, home oversight and five local songs on our arts editors list. This month, that's ahead on mid date. [inaudible] script's health confirmed in an email nearly 150,000 patients, staff and physicians had their personal information compromised during their ongoing ransomware attack. And of those groups says a small number, including social security and driver's license numbers, the sheer scale of the incident and the number of those potentially affected by it are raising questions of how best to safeguard against similar attacks in the future. Joining me is mark Heckman, a computer science professor and cyber security expert at the university of San Diego. Mark. Speaker 2: 01:34 Welcome right here. Happy to be here. So Speaker 1: 01:36 What are the immediate concerns about how hackers can exploit this information? Speaker 2: 01:41 Blackmail is a possibility if people have had, uh, uh, some medical treatment that is sensitive, that they don't want the world generally to know they could be potentially a blackmail, also identity theft. The amount of personally identifiable information in a health record is considerable. And we have lots of examples of people whose health records were stolen, who, whose identity was then stolen. Then the, uh, the, the thieves were able to open up accounts or get medical care in the name of another person run up quite large medical bills that were then presented to the real person who said, I don't know anything about these bills. It can take years to try to remove these debts from your, uh, credit history. Speaker 1: 02:26 Are those affected? What are some of the best steps to take to ensure the safety of their personal information? Speaker 2: 02:32 Well, there's, there's two problems here. One is trying to protect your personal information. And the other is to try to mitigate the problems after the information has already been stolen. And for many of us, our information has already been stolen. We've had so many examples in past years, not just health records, but financial information, the Experian hack of a few years ago. So to protect our information, it's, it's, it's kind of late in the day to do that. What we have to do now is try to pick up the pieces and try to prevent the damage from getting worse. For example, doing a credit freeze, or at least requesting a copy of your credit history periodically to check if people are using your credit history or using your information to open up accounts or to obtain services in your name that you could potentially be held liable for the debts. What Speaker 1: 03:16 Are some best practices for organizations that could be targeted by hackers? Speaker 2: 03:21 There's a large body of security, best practices or cyber hygiene, and, uh, organizations like scripts that are, uh, medical providers are subject to regulations under the HIPAA act. So there was a set of rules, security, and privacy rules that they're supposed to follow, and they could be subject to large fines if it's found that they failed to follow those best practices. Uh, but what we're finding in a lot of the most recent ransomware attacks, for example, the one on colonial pipeline is that many companies are not following these best practices are not following the basics of cyber hygiene. And these are companies that have very valuable information that the value of, uh, of a health record is probably about a thousand dollars each on the, on the market, on the black market. So there's a lot of value in stealing health records. And, uh, I don't know that all of these organizations have properly accounted for the risks that they're facing. We've Speaker 1: 04:14 Seen a number of attacks in the weeks since the script's hack happened. What are the lessons for individuals for sharing personal information with these large institutions that may be vulnerable to the hacks? Speaker 2: 04:26 There's not a lot we can do. If you're dealing with a large organization that requires your personal information, like your social security number, you really have very little recourse in terms of providing it. Now, I mean, there may be alternative. You may be able to provide an alternative number. It creates problems though, because most of these processes are not set up to account for alternate numbers. They're just, the assumption is made. It's built into the process that it's going to be your driver's license number or your social security number. And if you don't do that, if you've diverged from the standard practice, even if it's allowed, it may come up the works. And so you may be making your life more difficult in some way, for places where it's optional to provide information. For example, you don't have to tell Facebook your actual birthday. So whenever possible, whenever it's not required, don't give up this personal information and then you reduce the possibility of it being stolen from yet. One more database, Speaker 1: 05:18 You know, is the scale of this particular hack, typical of these kinds of attacks, Speaker 2: 05:23 Absolutely. A large organization, nice grips handles the records for hundreds of thousands of patients. If it's, if it's found in one place, you found it for just about everybody in that place. And then the attackers can exfiltrate that data. They can steal that data, make a copy of it. And then once it's in their hands, it's, it's too late to get it back. You Speaker 1: 05:42 Mentioned earlier that having these records stolen and not having enough resources allocated to safeguard them could be a HIPAA violation. Do you have any sense of how much these organizations like scripts, for example, get for these incidents? Speaker 2: 05:58 I don't remember for what the current level of fine is. It's somewhere between 500 and a thousand dollars per record. So potentially organizations have faced fines in the millions of dollars for losing patient records. I don't know exactly the nature of all of the information that was stolen from scripts, but scripts could be facing a serious fine for failure to adequately protect their patient information. Speaker 1: 06:22 So what lessons can be learned by other large institutions about cybersecurity from this hack, Speaker 2: 06:27 Other organizations that haven't been hacked by ransomware, for example, they shouldn't relax because they are targets. The bad guys are out there looking for targets like scripts. So the lesson is you can't relax, but we know from experience, we've seen it over and over again. The risk is higher than you think, and you need to devote more resources and more thought to protecting the sensitive information because it's all valuable. Speaker 1: 06:50 I have been speaking with mark Heckman, a computer science professor and cybersecurity expert at the university of San Diego. Mark. Thank you so much for joining us. It was my pleasure. Thank you for having Speaker 4: 07:07 UC San Diego health calls it the end of an era. There are vaccine Superstation at Remack arena, which began as the county's first large vaccination site at Petco park gave its final shot on Tuesday. The volume of people needing or wanting vaccinations has plummeted. And officials say this kind of large vaccination site is just not needed anymore. As other big VAX venues run by sharp and Scripps health prepare to close this month. The emphasis turns to mobile units, pharmacies and more ordinary medical settings to distribute vaccinations. Johnnie Mae is San Diego union Tribune, medical reporter, Paul Sisson, and Paul welcome. There was a time, not that long ago that people would stay up at night on the computer trying to get an appointment at UC San Diego's vaccination Superstation. So is this shrinking vaccination pool, a sign of success, Speaker 3: 08:04 Certainly in a way, you know, we're, we're getting very close to 2 million people who have had at least one dose. Uh, and then I don't see how you could see that as anything but a victory. Uh, however, we're just not quite there yet in terms of what the estimate to be the number we need to really break through to, to herd immunity, this idea that it's hard for, uh, an infection to spread very far in a community of people. Uh, they say we need to get to about 2.1 million people in San Diego county to reach that state. Uh, and we're, we're still over a hundred thousand shy Speaker 4: 08:40 About the vaccine service stations run by sharp and Scripps health. Have they also experienced a fall off in people wanting shots? Speaker 3: 08:48 Oh, they definitely have. Uh, I talked to Scott Evans, the CEO of sharp Grossmont hospital in Lamesa, uh, late last week. And he said, you know, we were seeing thousands of appointments coming in every day and now we're, we're seeing hundreds. Uh, and definitely the volume is much, much less than it was. Uh, but they are remaining open. Uh, they're kind of seeing exactly how they are going to make this transition during the month of June. It looks like they'll probably hold off for the next few weeks and kind of see how things change before they transitioned to nearby clinics or pharmacies that they run within their system. Um, scripts is running the Del Mar fairgrounds site, I guess, their agreement to use, uh, facilities down there for a driving, uh, vaccination operation run through June 30th. So they would have been transitioning away at that point. Speaker 3: 09:39 Anyway, it's not quite clear exactly how they will, uh, you know, transfer new appointments. It seems like a lot of our health systems are really quite focused on trying to deliver as many vaccines as possible within, uh, the normal, uh, confines of, of doctor's offices and that type of a venue where you have patients speaking to their doctor and their doctor might say, Hey, I noticed you haven't been vaccinated yet. Can we take care of that for you while you're here today with us, maybe for some other reason, like a routine checkup or for a specific health care problem. Speaker 4: 10:15 So which groups of San Diego ones are lagging behind in getting vaccinated and what kind of efforts are being made to boost those numbers? Speaker 3: 10:24 Uh, you know, we've seen very good vaccination uptick, uh, in the south, the Southern part of the county. Uh, we we've seen a little slower uptake, uh, out east and maybe even to some degree along the coast, uh, perhaps up in north county, uh, you know, not, not a massive lag behind, but maybe it's just slightly less uptake. Uh, you know, there, there still are quite a few fears out there, uh, about various rumors. Uh, you know, we saw the San Diego Padres, uh, players indicate, uh, over a week ago, uh, that they were concerned about fertility issues. Kaiser polls are indicating that that more than half of Americans believe at least one piece of inaccurate information about vaccines. So the, you know, there are still a lot of talk about whether or not this vaccine has been fully tested well enough, even though we've, we've had over 150 million Americans already receiving at least one dose. What about Speaker 4: 11:20 The vaccination lottery announced by governor Newsome last week where you can win up to $1.5 million if you've had one shot, could that possibly cause a surge in vaccinations Speaker 3: 11:32 Wondering, uh, you know, it really seems like it might, uh, you know, oftentimes people get wrapped up in, uh, this type of thing. I mean, if you think back to large power ball jackpots, you do see lots of folks coming out at the last minute to buy their laundry tickets. Uh, so I think logic kind of makes you feel, gosh, that could happen here. Uh, they will be doing the drawings for a 10, $1.5 million winners on June 15th, uh, the very day that the state's reopening blueprint system goes away. Uh, so all of these healthcare planners are definitely wondering, are we going to see a large number of folks come out at the last minute and roll up their sleeves and get their first dose? So they're eligible for that drawing. You know, it seems like we will still have a fair amount of Supercenter capacity available on June 15th then before, uh, certainly, uh, sharp and Scripps are, are both indicating that they will still have some, uh, Superstation capacity up and running. Speaker 3: 12:32 So there should be enough to absorb a pretty big surge, but what I think it's, it's a little up in the air in terms of exactly what's going to happen. How many folks are going to get motivated. I looked at the state numbers yesterday and, uh, it's a little unclear whether the state numbers lag quite a ways behind reality, but we certainly didn't have a huge number coming forward over the weekend, at least in the, uh, the numbers that were posted by the state. Uh, but that certainly could change after Memorial day weekend. Uh, when you could think that perhaps a lot of the vaccination stations were probably not booking up with appointments because people were out celebrating Speaker 4: 13:09 People, talk about the vaccination rate. Plateauing is the daily number of new cases also plateauing, or does that continue to fall in San Diego? Speaker 3: 13:19 You know, we've seen a pretty steady rate. We dropped below 100 cases per day for a while, and then kind of came back up over 100 again. But then, uh, now for the last three days in a row, we've been significantly under a hundred new cases a day, uh, so that it does feel like we're settling into a very low level of COVID activity in our local community. And we're certainly seeing that nationwide as well. I guess there's really no reason why we should be any different than the nation as a whole, which in most places is seeing a very, very low levels of activity. Speaker 4: 13:54 Paul, if someone listening has decided, yes, I want to get vaccinated. Where would you suggest is the best and most seamless option for them right now? Speaker 3: 14:01 You know, if you have, uh, access to the internet, which most people do, I suppose, uh, you can just go on the, my turn website that the state runs and it will show you all the different places you can get vaccinated, uh, and then you don't really even need to make an appointment. In most cases you can just wander on in and get one, a lot of local pharmacies, CVS, for example, uh, offer walk-up vaccination. So, uh, you know, it's pretty much everywhere at this point. Uh, you know, people are going to be falling over themselves to put a shot in your arm at this point. So, uh, shouldn't be much trouble at all. Speaker 4: 14:35 Okay. I've been speaking with San Diego union Tribune, medical reporter, Paul Sisson, Paul. Thank you. Thank you. Speaker 1: 14:52 You're listening to KPBS midday edition. I'm Jade Hindman with Maureen Kavanaugh, California health regulators have long been faulted for doing too little to ensure the state's 88,000 elderly and disabled people in nursing homes receive proper care. Now, an idea is being floated that critics say would gut nursing home oversight. Having state inspectors act as advisors. KPBS is Amica. Sharma has more. Speaker 5: 15:19 I'm still dealing with the effect from what happened at this place. Speaker 1: 15:23 Burton landed at Palomar Vista nursing home in Escondida last spring, needing care for a foot wound. The 57 year old says it turned out to be the worst place. Speaker 5: 15:33 I almost got my foot amputated because they wasn't taking care of my wound and my treatment Speaker 1: 15:42 And says his experience was just one example of poor treatment at the facility. Speaker 5: 15:47 I witness everything from the wound care to not be in change, to being treated unfairly, being not listened to witness so many things that would make you cry, literally make you cry. Yup. Speaker 1: 16:05 Our bottom is a nursing home inspector for the California department of public health. Barbato told state legislators last year, that stories of inadequate care are a commonplace. Speaker 6: 16:17 I have been well aware of the poor infection control practices and quality of care in many of our nursing homes prior to the pandemic, the high rates of death in these facilities during the pandemic, unfortunately comes as no surprise. Speaker 1: 16:32 Despite all of this CDPH is now mulling a post pandemic remodel of its oversight system. Being pushed by the nursing home industry. The agencies draft plan would require inspectors to visit nursing homes a few times each month to advise staff on how to reverse substandard care. Carl Steinberg medical director of life care center of Vista and Carlsbad by the sea care center says the idea would be a dramatic improvement over the current inspection Speaker 2: 16:58 System. It's very much, you know, gotcha. I found, oh, you know, the temperature of the breakfast was two degrees below what it should have been, or those kinds of things Speaker 1: 17:09 Burke says his support of the new approach has nothing to do with his other role. As chief medical officer of Marriner healthcare, the group is being seized by the state for under-staffing its Northern California nursing homes, falsifying its ratings to boost profits and failing to report any of the numerous sexual assaults at its facilities. Steinberg says his advocacy for revamping the state inspection system began long before the law. Speaker 2: 17:36 I do think a little bit more sort of humanity and collaboration would potentially go a Speaker 1: 17:41 Long way. pH declined in interview. But in an email said, the principle was to establish a more frequent presence in nursing homes. The email goes on to say that if the new method is implemented, CDPH will still carry out its distinct regulatory enforcement role advocates for nursing home residents, call this an impossible promise. Speaker 2: 18:03 What are they giving up? And I think the obvious answer is they'd be giving up enforcement. They'd be giving up complaint investigation Speaker 1: 18:09 Chica tell us a staff lawyer for California advocates for nursing home reform. He says it already takes CDPH an average of 636 days to investigate complaints against the facilities. Statewide Chica tell contends that having the agencies inspectors take on consulting roles would also pose a giant conflict of interest Speaker 2: 18:28 Would be if you got pulled over by a police officer for speeding and the police officer jumped in the car with you and said, okay, let's drive around and you show me your skills. And I'll critique Speaker 1: 18:36 Advocates say inspectors have told them they are against the idea. A lawyer for the CDPH inspectors union did not return phone calls. Meanwhile, Rob Halliburton says his foot still hasn't recovered a CDPH investigation into his claims, concluded Palomar Vista failed to provide him with proper wound care. It's why he's opposed to a change that would reduce CDPH, his watchdog role. Speaker 5: 18:59 I think that would be the worst thing ever period, because we need them to be our police best. They should be our police almost like when you call nine one one, the police show up and take care of you. Speaker 1: 19:10 Amita Sharma KPBS news in a statement, Palomar Vista said it couldn't discuss Halliburton's claims, but added it earnestly disagrees with the suggestion that anyone in the facility was ignored or mistreated and said its staff is well-trained in wound care. We continue our spotlight on the social justice reporting project, a multi-part series by the San Diego union Tribune. The report we focus on now deals with the issue of colorism, the preferential treatment of people with lighter skin, by others of the same or different race and the prejudicial treatment of people with darker skin by those of the same or different race. Joining us now is the author of the report. Savannah cadet, Haines, Savannah. Speaker 7: 20:06 Hi, thank you so much for having me on today. Speaker 1: 20:09 Decided to take on colorism for this social justice project. What moved you to take on this topic? Speaker 7: 20:15 What moved me to take on this topic is my own experiences firsthand experiencing colorism growing up and still actually experiencing it. Now that I'm getting older, growing up, it was so common in my community. As I talk about it a lot in my story in high school is when I really started to notice, um, the peak of colorism. Speaker 1: 20:36 And what ways did that play out in your life? Speaker 7: 20:39 Growing up? I was very lighter skin complexion. I had curly hair in high school. I was also like on the cheer team. So gave me a lot of opportunities or it seemed that way that a lot of people favored me over someone else that was not of the same skin complexion. That was a little darker or didn't have curlier hair or just kind of had different textured hair. So that's when I really started to notice that being lighter skin was in my favor compared to other skin complexions. Speaker 1: 21:10 So where does colorism come from? What's its root. I Speaker 7: 21:13 Think colorism takes back all the way back to slavery. Um, when you're learning about it in history, you learned that a lot of the white masters raped black women and the black women would eventually have biracial children. So biracial children would work in the house or work as like a housemaid while other children that were darker skin complexion or just black worked outside in the fields. So that kind of carried on into our society now, which is why lighter-skinned people are treated fairly different compared to darker skin people. Speaker 1: 21:46 Tell me about the people you spoke with and how colorism plays out in their lives. Speaker 7: 21:52 People that I spoke with, I actually had the opportunity to grow up with a lot of them. Um, whether that be in schools, I did pageants with a lot of the girls that I interviewed and I kind of just been able to see them grow entirely. And some of the women that I have, um, highlighted I also, or have also started their own businesses or are becoming journalists themselves. So I have a variety of women that I was able to speak to, but one that I can specifically touch base on is, um, in the videos, you can see that I interviewed a lady named Gianni Petty's Wilson, and she briefly discussed how being black has affected her in her pantry. And by doing this for a lot of the years, society viewed white women as the best competitors, as opposed to black women. And since she was a black woman competing in pageants, she felt that she had to act a certain way or her hair has to look a certain way or her makeup had to be a little bit lighter so that she could fit in and potentially have a chance at winning. Speaker 7: 22:56 Um, that's a woman that I was able to touch base with about colorism as well. And you Speaker 1: 23:01 Know, colorism is as old as, as slavery and colonialism, as you mentioned, how has it been experienced differently through the years? You think Speaker 7: 23:12 More in work atmospheres, school atmospheres, people's personal lives, such as dating and marriage. I touched base on that too. In my article, how I see that it's more complicated for women that are darker skin to be fairly treated differently or look differently compared to someone like myself who is lighter skinned. A lot of the women now, um, that are lighter skin are often fantasised or black women are fetishized as well as more like being checked off the list when it comes to a lot of men are often stereotyping black women. So I personally feel like now it's past slavery, but it's moving towards a different direction in someone's relationship life. Speaker 1: 23:59 You know, when people see and hear this, what do you hope they walk away with? Speaker 7: 24:04 I hope they walk away with a sense of feeling like they have to do something about this. Like they have to educate themselves on the topic. A lot of people don't know what colorism is and they often think it's just something that gets brushed off. And in reality, it affects a lot of people like myself who is biracial. It affects our everyday lives. We get passed up a lot on opportunities. We are often dismissed. We don't get treated the same. And that is a problem for a lot of people and not being treated the same or not having the same opportunities as one skin color obviously is a type of racism, which people don't assume that colorism is racism. But this is, as I mentioned, not the typical racism. Speaker 1: 24:49 And let's talk about that a little bit more. Do you feel that colorism is an issue that isn't often explored or interrogated in the way that it should be? Speaker 7: 24:57 Definitely. I think colorism is passed up completely. When you think about racism, you think about someone who is saying that black people are less than a skin color, right. But you don't think about colorism as, oh, you're lighter skin. So it's just, you are darker skin. So I just don't prefer you. It's such a complicated topic when you think about it. But colorism, for me, it's different just because the way that I've grown up, I never knew where I belonged. I was either to whites to be a part of my black family or was too black to be a part of my Mexican and Hispanic culture. So not feeling where you belong is very confusing growing up. And I feel that that is also can lead towards identity prices. Speaker 1: 25:53 I've been speaking with Savannah cadet Hanes and we've been discussing her article, not the typical racism as part of the union. Tribune's social justice reporting project. Savannah, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me on Speaker 4: 26:14 The pandemic has been on the top of our minds for over a year now with sickness and surges and vaccines taking up most of our attention, but there have been other things going on. Other changes in the works, sometimes big changes that have flown beneath the radar. One of them has to do with recycling and San Diego. The city is in the process of rolling out a whole extra layer of waste pickup, organic or food waste will have to be separated and placed in new green bins. It's a state mandate. It will cost the city a bundle and it will start in January. Johnny is Ken Prue, city of San Diego's recycling program manager. Ken, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me now, what exactly what types of waste will need to be recycled when this new law goes into effect? Speaker 2: 27:04 When the new requirements from SB 13 and D three take effect in January, 2022, basically all generators. So whether it's single family residence, multifamily residents, or businesses or other commercial entities, basically we'll have to recycle all of their bloomin' materials, which is largely the case now, but specifically they will all have to recycle organic materials. And it includes materials such as yard trimmings and untreated wood waste, as well as food scraps and food soiled paper and, uh, other, other similar items. Speaker 4: 27:38 And why is the state mandating this additional waste recycling Speaker 2: 27:41 It's to divert organic materials from landfills. And it's, it's largely because those materials generate significant about amounts of methane as they decomposed in a landfill setting. And so it's diverting that material one to reduce the emissions, but also to create valuable and needed materials or products that can help benefit the soil and just the overall environment and Speaker 4: 28:04 In our region, how do you expect this change will affect capacity at San Diego's landfills? Speaker 2: 28:10 Well, it'll definitely help because it in diverting materials from the landfill, it really extends the capacity of the landfills. So, uh, that, that, that will help. And it will also help us in reaching our zero waste planning climate action plan. Speaker 4: 28:23 Now the city will compost the waste at Miramar greenery will the capacity of the greenery need to be increased. Speaker 2: 28:32 We, we have capacity and we'll be doing some modifications to our facility. The main material that we will receive in this setting will be from the waste that we collect from the city service residences. And, uh, there will also be other privately operated facilities, both existing and also new facilities coming online that will process a lot of the material from businesses and condo complexes and, and, uh, entities like that. Speaker 4: 28:59 One of the hurdles in complying with this new state law is that most single family residences don't have a green band currently. So how are they going to get one? Speaker 2: 29:09 Well, that that's something we're going through the planning stages now, but the state law, the new new law requires that all generators will have to have containers. So for those homes that are serviced by the city of San Diego, we will have to provide those green containers and as well as collecting that material. And actually it will need to be collected weekly. So currently about two thirds of the homes have service, many of which provide their own old-style trashcan to use for the yard trimmings. So we'll actually have to convert the, to weekly, we'll have to get the automated carts, the green cards, and then we will also actually have to add the food scrap materials to the program. So then there'll be able to put their, their yard trimmings, their wood waste and their food scraps all in one bin and that'll get serviced weekly. Speaker 4: 29:55 This is a tremendous increase in resources that the city is going to have to dedicate to recycling. Tell us more about that. What, what are you going to have to add Speaker 2: 30:05 For the city service residents? We will have to be doing a lot of procurement, both of the existing containers, as well as purchasing a number of additional collection trucks. We also have to hire a significant number of staff, and we also have to upgrade facilities both for the fueling system for the, uh, compressed natural gas, uh, to fill the trucks, but also things like locker rooms. And you have just some of the basic infrastructure kind of the behind the scenes stuff. And, and then we also have to do a substantial effort, both for the city service customers, as well as across the board, a lot of education and outreach and also coordination and regulation of our franchise haulers that PR that service, the multi-family complexes and businesses. And there's a lot of reporting requirements. It's, it's a huge, huge undertaking and a huge, huge responsibility, or even you could consider it a burden placed on, on the jurisdictions. How much is this going to cost the city? It's a, it's a, it's going to be significant. And it's something that we're still in undergoing the planning phases. So I don't have a dollar amount off, off the tip of my tongue. The city, Speaker 4: 31:10 I believe spends about $34 million on trash service now. So what are we talking millions more? Well, the, the Speaker 2: 31:16 $34 million or so that is just for the black pen collection, the refuse collection. Then there's also money currently spent on the recycling collection. So for the blue bins and the yard trimmings collections, and then there'll be a significant add with having to purchase all of these automated containers and a number of new collection, packer trucks and the staff. And it's definitely, uh, in the millions of dollars, uh, that that will be required to meet these requirements Speaker 4: 31:46 With this huge additional cost for waste recycling and waste pickup in the city. Could this be the final straw that may end free garbage pickup for single family homes in San Diego? Speaker 2: 32:00 This is, that would be referring to the people's ordinance of 1919, and that that's something that would require a vote. And so that's something that could not be decided at the, at the staff or at the, at the city level, per se of say the city council, it's something that's currently with implement team, these requirements, the, uh, they're becoming a general fund cost. And so that's, it definitely is there's these new funding considerations are something that are not taken lightly. So Speaker 4: 32:30 People will now be asked to put food waste with their yard waste in these new green bins. What kind of outreach does the city plan to do? Speaker 2: 32:39 Because the city is so large, it will be a phased expansion. And so what we'll be doing is we'll be reaching out to residents as the service will be expanded into their area, and there'll be mailing. We'll also be doing outreach on social media and various platforms basically to let them know the services coming and to help them understand what the new requirements will be and basically how to participate and really present it in a way that it'll be easy to do. And something that people can easily get used to. One thing that we will offer is, uh, what's, what's known as a kitchen pale, and basically it would be a pale that you, uh, could put your food scraps in and use it to store the food scraps in your kitchen, say under your sink, or even in your freezer, then take that out to your collection container before you put it out at the curb. And so it's something where it'll make it convenient and also it'll have nice graphics on it to help people understand the types of materials they can put in the container. You know, we really want to convey to people too, that it's as easy as possible to, to do and get used to. Speaker 4: 33:42 Now state law requires that this becomes effective January 1st and there are large fines for not complying by then, is the city in danger of facing those fines? Speaker 2: 33:52 The city takes the implementation of these new requirements very seriously. And we're working very closely with Cal recycle the agency that, that regulates us on this, on these matters and explaining to them where we're at with our implementation. And we're, we're doing everything that we can to, to implement in time. Uh, we know that we will not be able to have everything a hundred percent rolled out by January one of 2022. And it's, it's in part a with the timing of the administrative regulations, the implementation regulations for this law only getting finalized, uh, in, uh, last December, early January. So originally they intended to have about three years of planning for jurisdictions and with COVID and everything else. It took longer. So we really have a very short lead time. And so, so say we had just under a year really to roll it out. But at the same time collection trucks take generally about 18 months to get. So we basically are explaining where we're at and, and showing that we're doing everything we, we physically are able to and taking it seriously. And, uh, calorie cycle has been very receptive and responsive to our, our, our situation and what we're, what we're doing. I've Speaker 4: 35:03 Been speaking with Ken Pru. He's the city of San Diego's recycling program manager. Ken, thank you. Thank you so much. This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavenaugh with Jade Heinemann summertime means a little more relaxing, maybe a road trip or two, or just some backyard Hangouts, which could put you on the hunt for a new soundtrack. We have some new music releases from San Diego area bands for you to discover ranging from rap to punk to robots. Joining me is KPBS arts editor, Julia Dickson Evans, to walk us through five new local tracks and welcome Julia. Speaker 8: 35:49 Hi Maureen. Thanks for having me. Speaker 4: 35:51 Well, let's do first up here, some hip hop 10 19, and the number men are out with a new P spokes. Tell us about this one. Speaker 8: 36:01 Yeah. 10 19 is a project by San Diego based rapper J Smith. And this EAP came out earlier this year and for such a short album, it's really impressive and jam packed. My favorite track is dog days, which is a grooving Synthi song. And that expression dog days kind of has a double meaning. It's a summary idleness, but also some darker themes like anxiety and depression. And this song really encapsulates both meanings. Well, there is a certain heaviness and exhaustion in the lyrics, but it's such a complicated brainy heaviness kind of poetic. And the overall Sonic effect is so HIPAA make meals in the morning. Speaker 9: 36:57 [inaudible] Speaker 4: 36:59 It's stock days by 10 19, and the number men from the new EAP spokes accidents is a punk band from Mexicali and they have a new album and vivo who's behind accidents. Speaker 8: 37:12 Yeah, this is a solo project of CSR Casio known as car from previous projects. And I really love the approachable brand of pop punk here. That is a little alternative, a little emo maybe, and I laugh LA persona like, Hey, Kona, sea state, which was actually released as a B side on another project last fall. I'm glad I got Alomar attention. And this album, that track title translates to the person you met. And this is a song that's kind of about how difficult it is to love someone who's struggling, at least from the perspective of the person who's struggling. It's the idea of being sorry for not staying the person you were when you first met. It's heartbreaking, but there's a little bit of hope in there and it's super catchy. Speaker 9: 38:32 [inaudible] Speaker 4: 38:38 That's Mexicali based accidents with LA persona. [inaudible] from their new album, NVivo local favorites. The Vera goals are out with new music and have an in-person concert scheduled this month. Tell us about the single and the show. Speaker 8: 38:56 I know it's exciting. Then they're brand new. Single is called Palm Springs and it's jaded and summery and wistful kind of everything you'd expect from a song about Palm Springs, but Jenna cotton's vocals add kind of an unexpected layer of mystery and a sharper edge to it. I feel like there's a mixture of nostalgia and a weird dread as we approach what people are calling the postbac summer. And the song hits that nail on the head for me, you can catch them live June 17th at the holding company in Obie, they're playing with his east Gonzalez and future sexual Speaker 9: 40:02 [inaudible] Speaker 4: 40:04 That's Palm Springs by the very goals. Tijuana based marrow Rosa is out with a new single inequity. Be me. Speaker 8: 40:50 Myra rose says in achy dad is a beguiling sinister track ends kind of heartbreaking, but still really chill. I love the texture here is Latin inspired, mallet, percussion, plenty of fuzzy electronics and simply layers and Mara Russ. His vocals are breathy. They're dark, a little distorted and a little sweet at times too. This one is her fifth single since last April's entra. So I'm hopeful. That's the sign of a forthcoming full length album from her, a follow-up to her EAP that came out in 2018 called comma. And LaSalla Speaker 4: 41:26 That's T1 is Mona Rosa with inequity that, and now for some robots, satanic puppeteer orchestra, great name has a new album and a robot lead singer, Speaker 8: 41:41 Right? So say tannic puppets here, orchestra. They're actually not satanic at all. It's a project of local Mike Buck Miller, AKA the professor and his robot SPO 20, who is actually the front person and singer Beck Miller writes the lyrics. And then he uses this really old text to speech software to create SPO twenties voice. So the melodies and the cadence, it's all created by this text to speech. And that software went out of business in 1997. So it's definitely a unique and retro sound. And once he has the lyrics, buck Miller will build the rest of the composition around those vocals. Their latest album is called race to space and it follows in the footsteps of all their other themed recent albums. There was one that was a grocery shopping themed one from a few years back. And this one's all about outer space. I personally love the track. Waitlists, there's a lot of space nerdery here, but also a little bit of existentialism and some pretty amazing insight into the human condition. All thanks to a robot Speaker 4: 43:47 That's weightless from satanic puppeteer orchestra. You can find links to stream or buy all of these tracks, plus a Spotify playlist@kpbs.org. And I've been speaking with KPBS arts editor and producers, Julia Dixon Evans. Julia, thank you so much. Thank you, Maureen. Speaker 9: 44:40 [inaudible].