MTS To Spend $34 million On New Fare Collection System And More Local News

Speaker 1: 00:00 It's Monday, July 15th. I'm Tom Fudge and you're listening to San Diego news matters from KPBS coming up the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, the MTS plans to spend $34 million on a new fare system and lawyer Corey Briggs says he will run for San Diego city attorney even though he's sued the city a lot. That's in more San Diego news stories coming up just after the break. Speaker 2: 00:31 Um, Speaker 1: 00:35 thank you for joining us for San Diego News Matters. I'm Tom Fudge, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System plans to spend $34 million on a new fare collection system to replace one that is outdated and flawed. I new service reporter Lauren j map has more Speaker 3: 00:54 four years. MDS has struggled with a problematic fair collection system that some writers find inconvenient. The compass card many writers use to pay their fairs, couldn't store money until about two years ago. Even though that technology has existed for years, it also has security issues. MTF has never been able to fix and writers can't buy one way tickets on the mts mobile app. Now the agency believes the new system launching in 2021 will solve those problems. Collin Parent with a nonprofit circulate San Diego hopes that happens, but Speaker 1: 01:28 just because they have the new technology doesn't mean they're going to make the right choices about how to use the technology. Speaker 3: 01:32 The North County Transit district plans to use the theme system but doesn't have a budget for it yet. For KPBS, I'm I knew source reporter Lauren J map. Speaker 1: 01:41 I knew source is an independently funded nonprofit partner of KPBS. A local fishing company is blaming federal regulations for its downsizing. KPBS is Anaco. Colbert has the details. Speaker 4: 01:55 San Diego Bay, South Pacific Tunis is it will sell off more than half of its fishing boats and expects to cut 200 jobs. The company says federal regulations have made it too hard to make money. San Diego state marketing lecturer Mira COPEC says US companies also face regulations that other companies in the global industry do not. Speaker 5: 02:15 One of the issues that they say is government regulations and what these regulations do. They they're focused on sustainability and labor practices. A lot of countries don't follow the same rules. Even though there's international treaties, they don't follow the same rules. Speaker 4: 02:28 COPEC says a drop in tuna prices and rising fuel costs have also come down hard on fishing profits. South Pacific tuner supplies about 20% of the canned tuna is sold in the u s and a coup. Colbert KPBS news, Speaker 1: 02:42 a federal appeals court harshly criticized the San Diego Police Department in a ruling last week on an office who shooting of an unarmed man in 2015 KPBS investigative reporter Claire Treg is here. He says, a new state laws aimed at increasing transparency, uh, police investigations, but the public will not have access to records detailing that 2015 shooting anytime soon. Speaker 6: 03:07 The state law allows for more public access to police records. It was written for cases like this officer Neil Browder shot for Dune Rashad and Ohad who is armed with only a upenn. Brighter said he thought and Ohad was carrying a knife. The appeals court says a reasonable fact finder could conclude that Nahad did not pose a danger to anyone, but because [inaudible] family is suing the city, the United States district court has established a protective order over the records. Layla Aziz is with the advocacy group pillars of the community. Speaker 1: 03:44 That ongoing investigation, excuse is just another reason to withhold information and to keep the people from actually having access to that information. Speaker 6: 03:52 She says protective orders could also prevent release of records from other recent police shootings. Claire Trag, Sir KPBS News, Speaker 1: 04:02 the San Diego City Attorney's office says they're reviewing the ruling by the federal appeals court. Dozens of human rights organizations and advocates say they oppose a possible immigration agreement between the U S in Guatemala. The agreement would declare the Central American country a safe destination for asylum seekers. Jorge Valencia reports from KJ, Zz [inaudible] Fronterra is bureau in Mexico City. Speaker 7: 04:27 It would also force Guatemala to process asylum claims from migrants who enter their country primarily that would affect the thousands fleeing Honduras and El Salvador toward the u s but Guatemala isn't really safe for asylum seekers. According to a letter signed by dozens of migrant advocates in Mexico and Central America. Gretchen Kuhner is with the Mexico City based nonprofit institute for Women in Migration. Speaker 3: 04:51 We're worried about people who are fleeing violence, not being able to have protection within the region and what worried about the United States not taking any responsibility for the people who are fleeing violence and two are refugees in in its own region. Speaker 7: 05:06 The White House says Guatemala's president will visit Washington on Monday to discuss migration in Mexico City. I'm Jorge Valencia. Speaker 1: 05:14 Low income families have distinct healthcare needs and advocate, say too much paperwork can prevent them from signing up for insurance, but that process could get easier. Cap Radios. Sammy, Kayla explains Speaker 3: 05:29 Sarah Shirley tried for months to get her infant son signed up for medical Speaker 8: 05:32 it. It was just really difficult to resolve. I would get a different caseworker every time I would show up at the counter and they would have to pull up my file Speaker 3: 05:42 after countless visits and no medical card, she gave up Speaker 8: 05:45 and I didn't want to deal with trying to access care and then getting rejected. I just said, okay, he'll be okay. Speaker 3: 05:51 Luckily he was after a year without seeing a doctor. Shirley finally got our son enrolled this, but thousands of moms and kids who are eligible for cal don't sign up because the process is too difficult. That's where a new bill comes in. It would take participants in the women, infants and children program. It's called WIC and enroll them in medical pretty much automatically. Former governor Jerry Brown vetoed a similar bill last year because of the cost, but advocates are hopeful. Governor Gavin Newsome, who's put a lot of focus on kids, will sign this version in Sacramento. I'm Sammy Cola. Speaker 1: 06:25 Corey Briggs is this San Diego attorney who has made headlines for filing lawsuits against downtown developers and municipalities, including San Diego. Now he wants to be San Diego's next city attorney. He joined KPBS evening edition Anchor Ebony Monet to talk about his campaign to replace incumbent Mara Elliott. Here's that interview. Speaker 9: 06:46 Welcome. Hi. Thanks for having me. So why do you want to be San Diego's next city attorney? Speaker 10: 06:51 The city attorney's office has been turned into a politic shop. We need to get it back to running as a straight up objective law firm that provides a support role to the mayor and the city council right now, the city attorney's office practices in politics disguised as lawyering. That's not good for taxpayers. It's not good for voters. It's not good for accomplishing what the mayor and the city council set out to accomplish for the people who get them elected into office. I want to fix that. I want to take the office back to being just a straight up regular law firm that gives the best possible advice to the mayor and the city council so that they can go out and do what they got elected to do Speaker 9: 07:27 after being a frequent challenger of the, the city of San Diego, do you feel that you could offer politics free advice? Speaker 10: 07:35 Yeah. Look, the reason that my clients have hired me to, uh, to sue the city on occasion to sue other government agencies is because politics is what's driving these decisions as opposed to being supported based on good legal advice. Speaker 9: 07:50 Do you think that that could possibly be a black eye during this campaign? How would you explain that to two potential voters? Speaker 10: 07:58 The proof is in the pudding. My client's sue, they win cases. The judges look at it, the judges conclude that they did the right thing, that they provided a public service and the judge approves the attorney's fees. That's all part of the way the system works. Think about it from the other side. When you have a politically motivated city attorney's office, who sues the voters to block them from voting on something as important as the future of mission valley to expand this very university. By the way, when that happens and it costs a taxpayer $600,000, who do they go to to get that money back? Nobody. The city attorney's office gets to shrug its soldiers and say, too bad. So sad. That's unacceptable. I don't have that luxury in private practice and I bring that ethic of putting the client first to the city attorney's office. Speaker 9: 08:50 So you speak a lot about transparency and government. Can you tell us about the San Diego ins for Speaker 10: 08:56 open government in, in your role with that organization? Sure. I've been at attorney, uh, since the beginning. It's followed a lot of lawsuits against government agencies to make sure that the public gets all of the information to which it's entitled frequently. As I'm sure you know, uh, the government stonewalls and doesn't like to turn over documents. And so we've had to file a number of lawsuits to make sure that those documents were released and we should disclose that your organization has found a lawsuit against our media partner. I knew source and KPBS, um, via San Diego State University, which holds our license. The lawsuit came after a series of investigative reports that outlined your ties to nonprofits. What would you say to critics who believe your intention is to benefit financially from these nonprofits by suing and then settling? Well, so two things. Number one, you should make sure your audience also knows that I wasn't involved in that lawsuit. Speaker 10: 09:51 I have nothing to do with it, not involved. That should be reported as well, so I can't comment on it. Just not a participant, participant in it. The question about whether I benefit from filing lawsuits, I'm a lawyer, I represent clients. I get paid for doing a good job for them. If I'm in the city attorney's office, I'm going to represent the city acting through the mayor and the city council with the same vigor, with the same integrity, with the same, uh, with the same experience and education that I bring to my private clients. I'm going to take my experience in private practice and bring it to the city where the tax payers and the voters need to be put first to make sure that they're protected so that there's no politically motivated advice influencing what the mayor and the city council too. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Speaker 1: 10:37 That was Corey Briggs is San Diego attorney who is challenging Mara Elliot in the race for city attorney of San Diego. He spoke with KPBS evening edition Anchor Ebony Monet. Tomorrow. At this time we'll hear from San Diego city attorney Mara Elliott. The farewell was a hit at the Sundance film festival earlier this year. It's director Lulu Wong stopped by the KPBS studios to speak with arts reporter Beth Mondo about making a film inspired by her own life. Speaker 9: 11:09 Lulu, your film is advertised on. The poster is based on a lie. So explain what that means. It was my way, I guess to say this is based on a true story, but even the true story itself is about a lie that was told to my actual grandmother. And what was that lie? The lie was that we were all coming home to China for the wedding of my cousin, but in fact the wedding was staged by my family as an excuse to see my grandmother and say goodbye to her because she had cancer and the doctor told her she had three months to live, but they decided not to tell her that she was ill. So that's why the wedding was necessary. So she wouldn't be suspicious when everybody suddenly rushed home to see her. And I understand the roots for this film came from a, this American life episode. Speaker 9: 12:00 Yeah. How did that come about as a filmmaker, I initially wanted to make this as a film, always have wanted to make it as a film, but found it really difficult to find the right partners who would support the vision of the film that I had. And there was a lot of um, producers who liked the concept initially, but want it to make it a much broader film and it's not the film that I wanted to make. So I set it aside because I thought if I can't tell the story the way I want to tell it, then I'd rather not do it at all. But I had the urge to tell the story. So I wrote it down as a short story and I met a producer from this American life and pitched him that story and it got picked up and me, no, we, between writing it and recording it, it took about two months and as soon as it aired, within 48 hours, producers were calling me to make it into a film. Speaker 9: 12:52 And what that did was it gave me the ability to pick the producer who would ultimately fight for my vision and my version of the story. And what was it about the story that was most important to you in terms of what you wanted to convey? I wanted to convey that it's not a story where there's a right or wrong, it's not a story about plot, it's a story about what it feels like as a family. When you are separated by an ocean and you start to change based on the country where you move to, you start to have different value systems and then what it means when you go back to your home country and you see the differences between you and that family that you left and you still love them, but you see the world in very different ways. And so I didn't want to tell a story where it was all about the wedding and the banquet and uh, the broad comedy of that or even, you know, it's a very high concept story and a lot of hilarity ensues. Speaker 9: 13:58 But it was very important to me to portray a specific type of humor and not a kind of humor where you're making fun of people or laughing at the family, but were you really are sympathetic to what they're going through. The character that Aquafina plays is kind of an alter ego for you, I suppose you could say that. Yeah. And so were you born in China and then grew up mostly in the United States? I was, yeah. And one of the scenes that I thought was really effective was when Aquafina's character confronts her uncle, I believe about keeping the secret. And he points out kind of the cultural differences. And can you talk a little bit about those kind of cultural differences that you wanted to highlight? Yeah, I think there's a fundamental difference between eastern and Western culture. I think that in America we, we very much value the individual freedom truth, which all surround the values of foreign individual. But in China, I won't speak for everybody else, but in China it's very much about the collective. It's about family, it's about society. And there's this notion of the things that we do to carry someone's burden for them, that it isn't up to them to decide how do I deal with this? And I must know so I can choose how to do it, but there's just a collective vision and that's what's so beautiful, but it also comes with its own challenges and pressures. Speaker 1: 15:23 The farewell opens Friday in Select San Diego theaters. Listen to the full interview on Best Cinema Junkie Podcast, and thank you for listening to the San Diego News matters podcast. I'm Tom Fage. More stories online@kpbs.org.