City Heights Kids Take Rare Trip To The Beach And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Monday, August 26th I'm Deb Welsh and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up. Zillow has new info on where San Diego's are coming from and where others are moving to. And a group of kids from the city heights area makes a trip to Pacific beach before school starts Speaker 2: 00:19 and it was my first time being on the bus ever, so I was very nervous Speaker 1: 00:23 that more San Diego news stories coming up right after the break. Speaker 3: 00:31 Um, Speaker 1: 00:33 thank you for joining us for San Diego News Matters. I'm Deb Welsh with the cost of living in San Diego perpetually on the rise. It's no surprise many residents are trying to get out, but San Diego is also a place people want to move to KPBS as Maya troubles, he takes a look at some housing search data and what it shows page views on the website. zillow.com show. Most of the people searching for homes in San Diego are in La, Riverside, San Francisco and New York. Two of the most popular zip codes. They're searching our nine two zero three seven in La Hoya and nine two one one eight in Cora Nado. Then there are those looking to get out of town, Zillow, economist Jeff Tucker, Speaker 4: 01:15 the frequency with which we were seeing residents looking at homes and Riverside, Phoenix, Dallas, Portland, Oregon suggest that a lot of residents of San Diego may be eager to find a place where it's more affordable to get a big home and raise a family. Speaker 1: 01:29 Tucker says this data is important because it helps give researchers a sense of migration patterns, sometimes well ahead of census data and it gives an understanding of how communities are connected as people move between them. Maya, treble, C K, PBS news, countless kids across San Diego County are enjoying their last week at the beach before school starts, but for one group of kids, a couple of hours in the sand and surf was extra special. KPBS reporter Prius, shree there explains it's around 1:00 PM on an August afternoon and dozens of kids from the city heights area have gathered at the El Cahone Boulevard Transit Plaza. They're going somewhere. They rarely go to the beach. Speaker 2: 02:10 Sure, ma'am. Look, looking forward to playing volleyball and swimming. Speaker 1: 02:14 11 year old, Tina Lou has only been to the beach three times even though she's lived in San Diego her whole life. Speaker 2: 02:21 It's, it's inconvenient for my family. And um, I have a lot of activities that I do. Speaker 1: 02:26 This will be the first time she makes the 11 mile trek from her city heights home by public transportation. Alright, let's go. It will take two buses and about an hour and a half to get to Pacific beach. Speaker 3: 02:40 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 02:40 one 14 the kids board the two 35 north bus. Approximately 15 minutes later they arrive at a bus stop in Kearny Mesa. Speaker 3: 02:52 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 02:52 after walking across the street, the group waits 20 minutes for the 27 bus to Pacific beach, scheduled to at one 51 Speaker 3: 03:00 my favorite moment in the beach was getting sand thrown at me. Speaker 1: 03:04 They make some introductions to pass the time the next bus rolls in, but it's having a few maintenance problems. Speaker 3: 03:14 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 03:15 wait, continues about 20 minutes after it was supposed to leave. The bus finally heads out 3:00 PM almost two hours since their journey began. They've made it. Yeah. Speaker 2: 03:31 We went here by bus. It was my first time going here, my bus. It was, and it was my first time being on the bus ever. So it was very like, I was very nervous. It was like a little bit too cramped, but um, I think it was, it was really good though. Speaker 1: 03:54 10 year old Allen, oh, Vez [inaudible] and most of his friends had few complaints despite the long commute. But sitting on a cramped boss for two hours isn't acceptable. Says Randy tourist van black. He's with the city heights community development corporation. They organize the trip to highlight what they say are inequities in ocean accessibility for minorities and low income people in San Diego. Speaker 5: 04:19 There's a lot of folks in our neighborhood and in city heights, but want to be able to go to the beach. But because of different access issues, affordability, it's not really a feasible, Speaker 1: 04:30 according to sandbags, regional plan, minorities and low income people in San Diego are more likely to live farther than 15 minutes away from the beach by both car and public transportation. MTS spokesperson, Rob Shupe says that there are a lot of considerations that go into planning bus routes and their frequencies. Speaker 6: 04:49 You know, San Diego is a spread out community. We have over a hundred buses that are a hundred bus routes. We got 800 vehicles out there, including over a hundred trolleys. So it's well-designed but, but San Diego is a challenging area to get people where they want to do go. We people live here and are working way over here and vice versa. Speaker 3: 05:08 [inaudible] Speaker 1: 05:11 back at the beach. The kids are enjoying their time in the sun and the water. They plan to stay for about an hour before they grabbed some tacos and board the bus again to make the trip home. Jonathan Burgos is one of the chaperones for the kids. He says, all kids should have a chance to take advantage of the beach, Speaker 7: 05:30 to uh, to be here, to watch a sunset, to even like have a smores on the beach. You know, those are things that sometimes I took for granted. You know, growing up, a lot of times when the students have that, it's just, it's such a game changer. Like to know that they hadn't had that in their lives and like I just want that and we should want that and I think everyone should have that opportunity. Speaker 1: 05:51 11 year old Randy Thorn says the beach is his happy place when I'm at the beach, I can Speaker 8: 05:58 explore like learn more new things. Speaker 1: 06:02 Priya. Sure. Either k PBS news with only a few weeks left in California, his legislative session, lawmakers are debating a bill that could change the nature of work for millions in the state capitol. Public radio. Scott Rod has this report, Speaker 9: 06:17 barbers, psychologists, truckers. These are just a few of the many occupations that could be impacted by ab five. It could also turn the GIG economy upside down. The legislation would establish a new standard to determine when someone is an independent contractor versus an employee. Experts say the law would make it harder to classify workers as contractors. That has consequences for workers and businesses. Independent contractors have freedom to set their own rates and schedules, but they don't receive benefits. Employees are under the control of businesses, but get benefits like health coverage and paid leave. Some industries are pushing for an exemption from the bill, but labor groups are fighting to preserve the broad scope of the legislation. In Sacramento. I'm Scott. Rod Speaker 1: 07:00 and asylum seeker from the Democratic Republic of the Congo was reunited with his family in San Diego last week. After almost two years in ice detention, KPV has reporter Max Revlon Navar was there as his new church congregation sang and danced during a welcome home celebration on Sunday. Speaker 10: 07:20 Constantine Bacalla had not seen his family in 21 months before he was paroled out of ice custody this week on Sunday at St Luke's North Park. He was all smiles as he thanked his friends and supporters for rallying for his release. Loves ruck is the joy that I feel right now. I don't have words for it, but Carla said through an interpreter, but call is says he was kidnapped in prison and tortured in the Democratic Republic of Congo for belonging to a pro democracy political party. He left the country and traveled with his wife and seven children to Brazil and after a perilous journey through south and Central America arrived at the San Ysidro Port of entry in November, 2017 there he was separated from his wife and children who settled in San Diego, whether asylum claims are pending, but Carla was initially ordered removed from the country, but his family's new church. St Luke's sprung into action to get him free, raising money and locating an immigration attorney for him now, but cola and his family can be together as they wait for a year or possibly longer to see if a judge will grant them asylum. Max with Lynn Adler, Cape PBS News, Speaker 1: 08:25 the group that owns the San Diego Gulls hockey team has been chosen to operate the Pachanga arena in San Diego. Sarah Cassiana says that they were chosen over longtime operators, AEG management and the Hahn family. The city of San Diego owns the arena in the midway district and it has selected a bid from Anaheim marina management to serve as the new operator for what's commonly called the sports arena. The company owns the NHLS, Anaheim ducks as well as San Diego's very own hockey team. The goals who happened to be the arenas, largest tenant, Miro Kobek was San Diego state and bottom line marketing told KPBS that the new contract begins on June 1st, 2020 but until then, the current and longtime operators plan to defend their position Speaker 11: 09:11 and a Han and a g have said until that time, which is next May when the transition occurs, they're going to continue to operate and they're going to try to convince the city council they made the wrong choice. Kopech also said Speaker 1: 09:22 that Anaheim arena management is planning to improve the user experience as well as increased revenue for San Diego taxpayers. Sarah [inaudible] k PBS news one book one San Diego encourages every one in San Diego and northern Baja to read and discuss the same book and it's announced its selections for 2019 KPBS as Donald Bloodworth has more on this year's titles Speaker 11: 09:47 chosen for adult readers. The great believers is by Rebecca MCI. The book is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and Stonewall Book Award winner and it's about the tears and tragedies of the aids epidemic and its repercussions. MCI will be the keynote speaker at a one book, one San Diego free event at Balboa Theater on September 19 the crossover by Kwame Alexander is a coming of age novel written in a mix of free verse in hip hop poetry. Alexander will speak to students at Wilson Middle School on October 23rd this year's picture book selection is dreamers by Uri Miralis. Miralis will be on hand December 7th for a kid friendly presentation at the senior seadrill library. You can find more details about the 2019 selections@kpbs.org Slash one book for KPBS. I'm Donald Bloodworth. Speaker 1: 10:38 There are 250 am radio stations in California, each a window into a different cultural community in Fresno. A station called KBI F has changed along with the central valley as part of our California dream collaboration. Julia metric visited the station and she brings us this story. Speaker 3: 10:59 Hello Speaker 12: 11:03 [inaudible]. In 1954 when KBF went on the air, it was a big band station, but evangelical radio was on the rise. And by the early sixties the format changed. We used to be a real hot area for tent revivals. Tony Denato is KBI F's general manager. He started working here in high school, 1979 he says back then, pastors from the Bible belt hosted live radio shows and they would have a tent revival over on Dakota and Hughes Avenue come this Friday, Saturday and Sunday for our tent revival and get healed. In the 80s and nineties immigration was changing the central valley. Fresno became home to Hmong refugees fleeing Laos and Vietnam and Punjabi immigrants from India. Speaker 3: 11:45 [inaudible]. Speaker 12: 11:46 So in the late eighties KBI ef added Punjabi music, religious programs, and local talk shows next time to [inaudible]. So please audit a gallon that's deep share. Gill, he's had a weekend show for 16 years. He and his family came to Fresno from the Punjab region of India during a large migration that began in the 90s he was 14, the Punjabi American community in the Fresno County area. They were kind of lost. I felt I was lost. So that was my approach. I was like, you know, we need to do something about it or it's better than media, better than our radio. Speaker 11: 12:20 Are y'all up to Picton the name? Pick the [inaudible]. I hate doing chair Gill plays Punjabi hip hop. He also talks about issues. He thinks matter to the local Punjabi community, water security, immigration, hate crimes. He says Punjabi truckers are some of his bedrock supporters. Like about two weeks ago, one of the trucker he was driving, uh, when my show us on, he parked his truck and he said, I'm going to listen to the whole thing before I go on growing up. As soon as you know the weekend hit like our radio dial and 2:00 AM 900, Speaker 12: 12:53 that's non deep. Sing a community organizer in Fresno. We meet at a restaurant, sinkholes, the station part town hall, part bizarre. You might catch health tips on avoiding hypertension. A few minutes later Speaker 11: 13:05 people are talking politics in the corner. People are just trying to find out the latest music on the side. People are talking about what's happening in the trucking industry and you will run through the litany of that on any given Saturday, Speaker 12: 13:16 but on weekdays the station broadcast talk shows music and adds in Hmong ancient log weight to your lamps inspection [inaudible] Michael Yang hosts a weekly show with farming advice for about a thousand mung farmers who call Fresno home. He's been doing it for 20 years. He lists market prices for Asian specialty vegetables like Bok Choy, Daikon and long beans on says getting this price check helps mung farmers avoid getting cheated by buyers. During the Collin segment of the show, Yank takes questions from folks listening in their pickups and in the fields they ask, you know, Oh, I have this bugs are eating my crops and I don't know what chemical to use. Can you come in and look at it? And he does. Looking ahead. One challenge for K, Bif for both the Mung and Punjabi shows is how to get and keep younger listeners. Many are bilingual and there's tons of other media out there for them. Speaker 12: 14:13 So I asked Saturday host or deep share, Gill, any interest in podcasting, it'll actually a bursty for me. I like it live like I want to be natural, like I want people to see if I have to even do [inaudible]. It's okay because I'm a human. Okay. And that's what KBF tries to do. Reflect the humanness of this stretch of the central valley and all the ways it continues to change in Fresno. I'm Julia metric. Thanks for listening to San Diego News matters. If you're not already a subscriber, take a minute to become one. 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