On San Francisco

Shirin Oloumi is known as the Queen of Car Break-ins. She doesn't break into cars. She prosecutes the people who do. Every car break-in that leads to an arrest in San Francisco crosses her desk, and she not only makes the charging decisions about them but appears in court to argue to Superior Court judges that the city’s property crime epidemic needs to be taken more seriously. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now that San Francisco General Hospital’s sketchy billing practice—in which privately insured patients are personally on the hook for their bills—have been revealed, there’s a central question: Why are the bills so high? From $34,000 bumps and bruises to $92,000 appendectomies, these amounts are outrageous because of the ever-inflated hospital “chargemaster.” That’s the list of rates, which is approved each year, no questions asked, by the mayor and the Board of Supervisors, who admit they had no idea what they were voting on. City Hall reporter Trisha Thadani interviews columnist Heather Knight about the latest in the billing scandal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rachel Rodriguez, a social worker in San Francisco General Hospital’s psychiatric emergency room, is incensed at the way some people are painting the move toward conserving more mentally ill people. She’s in favor of the changes and explains why — and why the current system is so broken. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From her insistence she wasn’t elected president of the Board of Supervisors because of sexist ideas about her being “difficult” to her drive to build more homeless navigation centers and shelters in her district despite neighbors’ resistance, Ronen isn’t afraid to say what she thinks. She’s the firebrand of the board — and she loves that reputation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Assemblyman David Chiu has heard the stories - of regular San Franciscans going to S.F. General with appendicitis, broken bones and migraines and getting stuck with a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. Even though they have private insurance. Chiu is teaming with State Sen. Scott Wiener to propose a state ban on all balance billing and cap what hospitals can charge for services at either 150 percent of Medicare’s rates or the average cost of insurance contracts. It would be a big hit to the city’s trauma center’s bottom line, but Chiu says it’s not fair to expect privately insured patients to shoulder such huge burdens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Miracle Messages uses social media to try to connect homeless people in San Francisco with long-lost love ones in hopes of getting them back home with someone who cares about them. They’ve matched nearly 200 pairs, but founder Kevin Adler says the city could do more to help. Heather Knight interviews Adler and joins him downtown as he and his fellow "ambassadors" talk to people living on the streets.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Columnist Heather Knight and Hall of Justice reporter Evan Sernoffsky discuss the already crowded field to replace San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon. For the first time in about a century, there will be no incumbent in the race - meaning the field is wide open and several impressive candidates are already raising big money and gathering key endorsements. Who has the upper hand? What do San Franciscans want in their next DA? Get the inside scoop here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Official discussions about how to divvy up San Francisco's $185 million windfall were set to begin at Wednesday's Budget and Finance committee meeting. These discussions have become about a lot more than just which city budgets should get a boost. They're about what kind of city San Francisco wants to be. Trisha Thadani reports from City Hall.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco voters have recently approved major tax increases to fund homeless services, teacher pay raises and childcare, but the money’s being kept under theoretical lock and key until the courts weigh in. At issue is whether these measures really needed two-thirds voter support versus the simply majority they received. City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s controversial advice that they only needed a majority is what set off this hullabaloo. Columnist Heather Knight interviews him about it, as well as other subjects like his fight against the oil companies to pay up for climate change and, of course, his favorite burrito. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stephen Torres-Esquer, an award-winning special education teacher at Lowell High, talks about how hard it is to make it in one of the world’s most expensive cities on such a paltry salary. As San Francisco politicians fight over how to spend a surprise windfall of more than $184 million, he tells Heather Knight he’s likely to return soon to his hometown of Stockton, where he could buy a house and even open a savings account. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New Supervisor Matt Haney has barely begun his new job representing District 6, but he’s already deluged with meeting requests, emails and tweets from residents fed up with the filth, needles and feces on their sidewalks. He’s fed up with it too and said the Tenderloin and South of Market can no longer be the city’s dumping ground and residents can no longer be ignored. He even says there’s been a city conspiracy to allow these issues to fester in District Six, but we’ll let him explain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the first time in years, progressives have a majority on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but their inability to unify around a single candidate for board president shows they have a long way to go to exert their power. Trisha Thadani reports on the victory of gentlemanly Norman Yee over firebrand Hillary Ronen.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jane Kim was a San Francisco Supervisor who was running for mayor when she talked to Chronicle columnist Heather Knight for this episode, which ran on March 21, 2018. Kim, who lost in her mayoral bid and was termed out from her seat on the Board of Supervisors, is known for big, bold ideas, only a fraction of which became reality at City Hall. But she centered her mayoral campaign on a very practical policy initiative: cleaning the city’s notoriously dirty streets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The 61st floor of the Salesforce Tower was the setting for San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight's  interview with CEO Marc Benioff just before the 2018 election. Benioff talks about his support for Prop. C, the initiative to tax big businesses — like Salesforce — to raise money for homeless services, and why he scolded other San Francisco CEOs for not doing the same. From Nov. 2, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight talks to SFPD Chief Bill Scott about the epidemic of car break-ins and what residents and the police can do to prevent these crimes. Scott also talks about homelessness and injection drug use on the city’s streets. From April 2, 2018. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chronicle columnist Heather Knight talks to Bay Area movers and shakers about their favorite San Francisco films. "Vertigo" and "Mrs. Doubtfire" get a lot of votes as Mayor London Breed, Marc Benioff, State Senator Scott Wiener and others weigh in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When London Breed sat down with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight in April, she was the president of the Board of Supervisors and the former acting mayor — after her colleagues had booted her from office. She was also running for mayor, a race she would win in June. In the April 4, 2018, episode of San Francisco City Insider, then-candidate Breed talks about her childhood in the Western Addition, her plans for San Francisco, and the fact that she worries about her own housing situation even as she serves in the upper echelons of city government.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Late last month, San Francisco woke up to find itself $415 richer. The question now is: Where is all that money going to go? Competing plans have already emerged, and some groups, including education advocates, are already making the case for why they should get a piece of the pie. City Hall reporter Trisha Thadani is here to help us make sense of it all. Hosted by Dominic Fracassa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The San Francisco Democrat talks with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight about his proposal to give all homeless people in California a right to shelter, his second try at making car break-ins easier to prosecute, and one surprising benefit of being 6-foot-7. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An all-star cast of Chronicle political experts breaks down the biggest races and issues on election night 2018. San Francisco Chronicle senior political writer Joe Garofoli hosts this episode with editor in chief Audrey Cooper, editorial page editor John Diaz, political writer John Wildermuth, Sacramento bureau chief Melody Gutierrez and columnist Heather Knight.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices