S6, Part 2 | Ep 1: A Busload of COVID

Drilled

Critical Frequency

True Crime, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In April 2020 when San Luis Obispo announced a plan to become the first city in Southern California to ban gas in new buildings, the region's utility SoCal Gas--the largest gas utility in the country--sprung into action, threatening among other things to bus in large numbers of protestors to crowd the town and city hall, refusing to mask or social distance just as the pandemic was taking hold in the U.S.

Check out the Los Angeles Times for more reporting on this: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-05-06/socalgas-union-leader-protest-threat-no-social-distancing

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The world's second largest economy is increasingly being sealed off from the rest of the world.
0:06.0	Think back to April 2020 when every newscast was filled with warnings like this.
0:13.6	Health officials cautioning we haven't hit the peak the new warnings from survivors.
0:18.6	Nobody's safe from the virus. You don't know how it's going to happen.
0:22.8	Now imagine you're the mayor of a medium sized town in California, poised to hold a city council meeting
0:30.3	with rules about masking and social distancing so everyone feels safe and you'd get a letter like this.
0:38.0	If the city council intends to move forward with another reading on a gaspan,
0:42.8	I can assure you that there will be no social distancing in place and I strongly urge the city council
0:47.8	to kick the count down the road and adhere to public safety measures. Please don't force my hand
0:52.5	in busing in hundreds and hundreds of pissed off people potentially adding to this pandemic.
0:58.0	We will pull permits in closed streets and we'll have a massive protest. This is not the time to do
1:02.6	this. Please tell Mayor Harmon and the rest of the council for the sake of people's health that
1:07.6	their efforts are better focused on how to deal with this pandemic than to stir up the emotions
1:12.3	of people losing their jobs. Be smart about this. That's former mayor of San Luis Obispo, Heidi Harman.
1:20.4	The letter in question was from Eric Hoffman, the leader of one of the unions representing
1:26.1	utility workers in California and an outspoken critic of attempts throughout the state to move away
1:32.1	from fossil gas. Hoffman did not respond to requests to speak with us for this series.
1:40.3	Harmon says a letter threatening a large crowd of people outside the council's chambers who refuse
1:47.2	to mask or social distance at a time when there was no vaccine for COVID and everyone was feeling
1:54.8	really panicked. All of that really scared her and the rest of the city council. And ultimately,
2:01.3	the scare tactic worked. They postponed their vote on a bill that would have banned gas in new buildings.
2:08.7	San Luis Obispo is a pretty little college town on California's central coast. It's got a large
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Critical Frequency, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Critical Frequency and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.