The Bay

Oakland’s Lake Merritt is supposed to be a public space for everyone. But it doesn't feel that way when white residents complain about the way black residents use the park. So how did people respond when a white woman recently called the cops on two black men grilling? They threw a party at the lake. Guest: Sandhya Dirks, KQED race and equity reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For a housing starved San Francisco, Hunters Point might look like a developers dreamland. The area has large plots of land, a waterfront and beautiful vistas. But the land has been making headlines lately with news of pollution, botched tests and radioactive waste. The latest is that the newly developed residential area called "Parcel A" may be more dangerous than previously thought. And residents are mad and suing. Guest: Chris Roberts, investigative reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are few women in tech. There are even fewer women of color in tech, which can be isolating. At a women's mixer in Mountain View for Google partners, two black women connect over their career experiences. They've seen how corporate culture gets in the way of workforce diversity strategies. Guest: Tonya Mosley, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief for KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Judge Aaron Persky is facing a recall election in June after sentencing a former Stanford student-athlete Brock Turner to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious and intoxicated woman back in 2015. The Santa Clara County Superior Court judge has remained mostly quiet. But on Tuesday the Judge Persky called a news conference at a private peninsula residence. Today, what are the consequences of recalling a judge? Guest: Jessica Levinson, elections law professor at Loyola Law School. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thousands of University of California union employees are on strike this week amid failed contract negotiations. Among them are gardeners, janitors, nurses aides and food service workers who say the Bay Area's expensive costs demand higher wages. Today, how a UC Berkeley gardener making $23 an hour gets along. Guest: Ivan Casanova, gardener for the University of California at Berkeley and Vanessa Rancano, KQED education reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

San Francisco named the Julius Kahn Playground located in the Presidio after the congressman who represented the city in the early 1900s. But his racist past as the politician who disparaged immigrants and advocated for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 has San Francisco supervisors interested in renaming the park. We revisit the country's anti-Chinese past and hear how those racist laws oppressed Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Guests: Allan Low, real estate attorney and vice-president of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission & Norman Fong, executive director of the Chinatown Community Development Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chinatown is one of the few San Francisco neighborhoods where lower income residents can still afford to make rent. The tenants living in one Single Room Occupancy - where rooms are 80 square feet - are the latest to sue their landlords over what they say are attempts to push them out, including fines for hanging laundry out of windows to dry. Guest: Jessamyn Edra, staff attorney with Advancing Justice Asian Law Caucus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Working without a boss has its perks. But many gig workers, like those who drive for Uber and Lyft, say they're treated more like employees than contract workers. The California supreme court ruled this week that misclassifying workers as independent contractors rather than employees is a "very serious problem." And the ruling could have big implications for the Bay Area where many gig workers live and work and could potentially be categorized as real employees. Guest: Sam Harnett, KQED Silicon Valley reporter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are license plate readers all over the Bay Area that law enforcement can use to track vehicles coming in and out of a particular area. Many of these devices have hung above street lights for a few years, but now some East Bay cities are beginning to limit what surveillance data is being collected from them and regulate how that data can be used. Guest: Cyrus Farivar: Ars Technica, senior technology policy reporter and author of Habeas Data: Privacy vs. the Rise of Surveillance Tech Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The debate over rent control is at a new crossroads. Tenant advocates say they've collected enough signatures to ask voters in November to repeal Costa Hawkins, a state law that curbs rent control polices in some cities. We ask ... what exactly is Costa Hawkins, again? Guest: Jessica Placzek, reporter for Bay Curious at KQED Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices