The University of California at Berkeley announced today in a press release that construction of a 1000-bed privately developed dormitory on the site of People's Park will begin in 2020.

According to the release:

"As part of a comprehensive effort to address challenges facing the campus and its urban neighbors, UC Berkeley will redevelop and revitalize People’s Park. Today, Chancellor Carol Christ announced the university’s plans to build on the site a new residential facility for students and make land available for the construction of permanent supportive housing for members of the city’s homeless population. Plans also call for setting aside part of the 2.8-acre property for open and recreational space, as well as a physical memorial honoring the park’s history and legacy.

"With as many as 1,000 beds planned, the new student housing represents a significant step towards meeting the chancellor’s stated goal of doubling the campus’s residential capacity. At the same time, supportive housing will be located in a separate, independently operated building and will have 75 to 125 apartments that will provide safe and supervised living for homeless Berkeley residents.

"More information about the plans and proposals can be found here."

At around 2:00pm BPD responded to the 2300 block of Acton Street for a dispute between family members. No one was injured and there is no threat to the community. The investigation will continue but we have left the scene.

Please avoid the 2300 block of Acton due to police activity. Shelter in place for residents 2300 block of Acton.

[No further information is available as of 3:08 p.m.]

Dave Margulius has launched an ambitious new project, Watch Berkeley, which is curated excerpts from the video record of Berkeley City Council meetings. If you want first-hand information about what's going on in Berkeley, this promises to be an invaluable news source.

Click here to take a look at his introduction.

And here's an excellent example of what you can see, Councilmember Ben Bartlett's proposal that Berkeley try a novel "microbond" financing scheme: 

Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods filed suit today against UC Berkeley (Cal) for increasing its student numbers by five-fold more than allowed in Cal’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan (2020 LRDP). The citizen organization charges the excess increase of more than 6,500 undergraduates has led to student homelessness and skyrocketing rents for student housing. 

The organization said the suit filed in Alameda County stems from Cal’s refusal to sit down with local residents to discuss the dramatic impacts of the enormous increase in students and develop plans to maintain the quality of life in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus. 

“Cal Chancellor Carol Christ told me during an October 2017 meeting that she wouldn’t negotiate with the neighborhoods, despite Cal’s clear violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA),” said Phil Bokovoy, president of Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods. “Cal also refused to respond substantively to our attorney’s written request that it study the impacts of the increase, as required under CEQA. We’ve been left with no other option other than to file this lawsuit.” 

The suit asks the court to compel Cal to conduct an environmental study to assess the impacts of the increase in enrollment and how those impacts may be mitigated. These types of assessments are required by the state legislature. 

To date, major impacts of the extra students include displacement of many low-income renters, increased homelessness, additional burden on police, fire and emergency services, and growth in trash and noise throughout neighborhoods surrounding campus. The student crisis is documented in a YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49NDe1eg9t4&feature=youtu.be. 

In the 2020 LRDP, adopted in 2005, Cal committed to add 1,650 students and 2,500 beds for students. According to information provided by Cal in October 2017, the actual increase in enrollment is almost 8300 and the university has built fewer than 1,000 of those beds. It has also taken several hundred other beds off the private housing market through the use of master leases, greatly diminishing the supply of affordable housing for residents of Berkeley.  

In addition, Cal has reported that its regular faculty numbers have decreased slightly, significantly raising the student/faculty ratio. At the same time, staff numbers remain static despite the need to serve a larger student population. 

Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods is a non-profit organized to provide education and advocacy to improve the quality of life, protect the environment and implement best planning practices for Berkeley citizens.

Joined by several dozen supporters, including a majority of the Berkeley City Council, Igor Tregub yesterday launched his campaign for Berkeley City Council in District 1. Video of the kickoff is available here. 

“I’m running for City Council in District 1 to continue delivering proven progressive leadership to the people of Berkeley,” Igor Tregub said. “I want to help our great city find lasting solutions to our housing affordability and homelessness crisis, to reshape our infrastructure into one that reflects our commitment to sustainability, complete streets, and resiliency, and to make this a place that we can leave in better shape for our children and grandchildren.” 

Igor was introduced by his life partner, Maritessa Bravo Ares, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, Berkeley Councilmembers Sophie Hahn and Kate Harrison, and El Cerrito Mayor Gabriel Quinto. 

“I am proud to endorse Igor Tregub for City Council. He has a long record fighting for progressive Berkeley values,” said Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin. “From his days as an ASUC Senator fighting for more student housing to his work on the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board to defend rent control to his work on the Zoning Adjustments Board, where he has secured funding for affordable housing and protected units from demolition and prevented displacement, Igor has always been a leader we can count on.” 

“With Igor’s leadership in the Sierra Club Bay Chapter, we have supported progressive values such as sanctuary cities, making sure our air and water are clean, and making sure that we have the funds to protect our shoreline,” El Cerrito Mayor Gabriel Quinto said. “Igor has been by my side in the fight to raise the minimum wage and to make sure that El Cerrito and Berkeley work together to continue their leadership as green cities.” 

“There is no one that outworks Igor. I’ve seen his heart and his passion for public service. Under Igor’s leadership, we won’t leave anyone behind in District 1,” Maritessa Bravo Ares added. 

Tregub concluded, “Today we begin the long but exciting journey to ensure that District 1 is a place that we can all call home!” 

Igor’s Record 

Igor is an elected member of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board and currently serves as the Chair of the Housing Advisory Commission and Zoning Adjustments Board. He is also the chair of the nearly 40,000-member-strong Sierra Club San Francisco Bay Chapter. His record of proven progressive leadership includes: 

• Housing affordability. Igor approved an unprecedented number of below-market rate housing, helped craft and pass a permanent funding source for affordable housing, while stopping demolitions of several rent-controlled buildings.
• Environmental leadership. Igor helped stop the transport of dirty coal through District 1, and he serves on the Berkeley Climate Action Coalition Steering Committee.
• Equity and access. Igor helped lead the fight to pass Berkeley’s landmark minimum wage ordinance, and he’s helped increase funding for local public transit.
• Safety for all. Igor is a trained ICE observer to defend our undocumented neighbors. As a neighborhood watch captain, he’s helped secure better lighting on our streets.

Igor’s Early Endorsements 

At this early stage of the campaign, Igor’s long record of public service and activism has already earned him dozens of endorsements, including: 

Board of Equalization Vice Chair Fiona Ma 

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones 

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin 

Berkeley Councilmember Ben Bartlett 

Berkeley Councilmember Sophie Hahn 

Berkeley Rent Board Chair John Selawsky 

Berkeley Rent Board Vice Chair Paola Laverde 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner James Chang 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Christina Murphy 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Jesse Townley 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Dave Blake (Ret.) 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Asa Dodsworth (Ret.) 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Paul Hogarth (Ret.) 

Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Sharon Maldonado (Ret.) 

Alameda County Superintendent Emerita Sheila Jordan 

Albany Councilmember Nick Pilch 

El Cerrito Mayor Gabriel Quinto 

El Cerrito Councilmember Janet Abelson 

Emeryville Councilmember and Former Mayor Dianne Martinez 

Fremont Vice Mayor Vinnie Bacon 

Hayward Councilmember Sara Lamnin 

Oakland Councilmember Abel Guillen 

Richmond Vice Mayor Jovanka Beckles 

San Francisco Supervisor Malia Cohen 

San Leandro Vice Mayor Corina Lopez 

Oakland School Board Director Shanthi Gonzales 

San Francisco School Board Director Matt Haney 

BART Board Chair Robert Raburn 

BART Board Member Lateefah Simon 

BART Board Member Nick Josefowitz 

AC Transit President Elsa Ortiz 

AC Transit At-Large Director Chris Peeples 

You can learn more about his campaign at http://www.igortregub.com. 

We could call it the Vampire Ordinance. In the 45 years since I came back to Berkeley the attempt to get poor people out of our civic face has surfaced, Un-Dead, what, three, four, five times under different guises. As I’ve said all too many times, I still have in the rafters of my garage a sign that proclaims Assemblymember Tom Bates’ support for Measures N&O, a particularly pernicious incarnation of this vampire which attempted to ban asking for spare change.

I suppose there’s been some progress—the implementation of that version was stalled in federal court on First Amendment grounds. But now it’s time to round up the usual clichés to describe the latest attempt to wish away ugly beggars, something that’s been part of our historic culture for centuries and never seems to die.

It’s “Groundhog Day.” (From a long ago movie where the same thing happened over and over again, every day. Like the Vampire Ordinance.)

“Déjà vu all over again.”(Old timey baseball player Yogi Berra emphatically describing an all-too-familiar occurrence. We’ve seen this one before.)

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing all over again and expecting different results.” (This popular aphorism has been attributed to everyone from Albert Einstein to Mark Twain, but it’s an insult to the interestingly insane folks I know, most of whom have more sense than that.)

There’s no possible excuse for dredging up yet another anxious parsing of the various rules intended to mollify Berkeley burghers who are frightened by encounters with street people. The latest round, which surfaced at a special Berkeley City Council meeting on Thursday of this week, would come under the heading of “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."

In this case, it’s not even all the deck chairs on the whole ship, but merely a small subset of them on a little part of one of the lower decks.

Last night we heard from just a few of the many speakers yet another iteration of Berkeley exceptionalism: the quasi-religious belief that vagrants and blackgards come from all over to partake of the wonders of Berkeley’s extra-special social services. I follow the civic fortunes of Santa Cruz, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles and New York City in the online press to a degree, and I’m here to tell you that every one of these cities has the same self-righteous burghers who believe that their town is uniquely burdened by the poor and doufless.

Guess what? There are many, many transient, homeless, mentally ill and/or unemployed (choose your adjectives) people everywhere these days. Not only that, they’ve been here and everywhere for a long, long time. There are global reasons for this, and blaming Berkeley is not the answer. 

Way back in the early 80s, wlhen my family was launching a mom-and-pop startup on Telegraph Avenue in the loft over the building which now houses Rasputin’s, there was an encampment of older African-American men, mainly veterans, some of them drinkers, who lived in the parking lot which is now a big new ugly UC dorm. They swept the lot out daily, saved a parking place for us and greeted us cheerily by name every morning.  

On the Avenue and in People’s Park, then as now, there were hostile transient youths, drug users, religious nuts, and just plain nuts, and yet it was a great place to start a high tech business, low rent being a big attraction with the Caffe Med and Cody’s close seconds. We stayed there until the 1989 earthquake reminded us that the building was unreinforced masonry and we moved to a one-story stucco alternative in West Berkeley. 

This is why the whining of unsuccessful and even successful business people, both for-profit and “non-profit”, annoys me so much. It’s all too easy to make a scapegoat of the down-and-out and miss the forest for the trees. Berkeley hasn’t lost most of its independent bookstores because of homeless people blocking sidewalks—it’s Amazon, stupid. But for a long time bookstore proprietors didn’t see Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane . That scenario has been repeated by small retailers of all kinds of products all over the country. 

My particular bête noir in downtown Berkeley is the Berkeley Repertory Theater, a very successful enterprise, the “non-profit” beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of dollars of civic support, both as tax expenditures and through the use of the city’s bonding capability. Their spokesperson Susan Medak has never missed an opportunity to pile on the street people who hang around Berkeley’s grandly labelled little Arts District block hoping for a handout from wealthy patrons of the arts. 

One source of my pique, I must admit, is that when the Berkeley Daily Planet was making a futile attempt to become self-supporting through advertising revenue, the Berkeley Rep’s ad buyer told our salesperson self-righteously that they were just not interested in our demographic, preferring the bridge and tunnel crowd from over the hill, for whose benefit the City of Berkeley is even now constructing an immense parking garage on Addison.  

And while we’re on the subject of ungrateful non-profits, a spokeswoman for the Brower Center (”We offer collaboration-driven office space to like-minded businesses and organizations”) complained last night about undesirables who lurk near her lovely new building, which was funded in part by public dollars on the site of a former city parking lot.  

I hate to be rude , but she should Get Over It. If the Browerites don’t like Berkeley, which had street people before she was born, they should have set up their camp in Marin or Walnut Creek.  

Back to those deck chairs: last night Mayor Arreguin and Councilmember Hahn, both intelligent and basically kind-hearted people, wasted a whole lot of their time and that of their fellow councilmembers, a passel of well-paid city officials, at least two police officers and the 50 or more equally intelligent and charitable Berkeleyans who showed up to explain what was wrong with their draft. 

It’s rumored that the two named authors of the proposal pulled an all-nighter or close to it to come up with this document. I talked at last night’s meeting with several people for whom I have the deepest respect who participated in an Ad-Hoc Committee on homelessness assembled by the mayor, all of whom felt that their advice had been ignored in producing the ultimate version.  

How much better it would have been to have put forward a unity draft from the committee, perhaps along the lines of the basic principles enunciated by committee member Margy Wilkinson at the meeting.  

Time for another cliché: 

Have you heard the joke about the guy who lost his car keys on the way into his house from his driveway? His wife came out and found him looking all over the street under the streetlight.  

“Why are you looking over there?” she asked. “You dropped your keys in the driveway.” 

“The light’s better out here,” he replied. 

Starting to tackle the massive national problem of homelessness by marking off little squares of Berkeley sidewalks where the disreputable aren’t allowed to be is like looking for the car keys under the streetlight. The city and the state have a plethora of regulations on the general topic of blocking sidewalks so that pedestrians are impeded, but they are mostly unenforced. Against anyone. 

One of the best comments at the meeting, which I hope she will reiterate in this space, came from civic bulldog Carol Denney, who has done exhaustive research into sidewalk-blocking in Berkeley. No surprise to anyone who walks around town, there are café tables and chairs, sign-boards, flower pots and other assorted commercial tchotchkes all over the sidewalks, and almost none of them have gotten the theoretically required permits to encroach on the public right of way.  

This point, at least, got the attention of Councilmember Hahn, who brightened up at the thought that such permits if required of commercial establishments could be a revenue source that might pay for needed services. Councilmember Harrison asked for language to be added to the proposed new rules which would specify non-discriminatory enforcement. At first some of her colleagues thought she was talking about race, but her intention was to include everyone who occupied sidewalk space for any purpose, not just transients. 

A major problem with the draft presented last night is that it conflated lack of housing with blocking the sidewalk. It’s true that some of those who block sidewalks might be unhoused, but not always. The language labored over last night was solving a problem which hardly exists, that of some simply preventing others from passing. 

The discussion at last night’s Berkeley City Council meeting included exactly no data documenting instances of sidewalks being blocked by people who wouldn’t move themselves or their stuff when asked politely. 

(Factual aside: the two people in my home now have lived in Berkeley for a total of 97 person-years, and neither of us can remember a single instance of being unable to walk along a sidewalk because some person was blocking it. Yes, we might have needed to swerve a few inches a few times, but almost never. But don't get us started on the lethal bicyclists who speed down the Ashby sidewalk past our door to avoid street traffic. ) 

In earlier iterations of the Vampire Ordinance, the general term “problematic street behavior” was used to cover more than sidewalk blocking, but that term seems to have fallen by the wayside, so to speak. Here’s the basic problem: nowadays there are a lot of humans (and sometimes their dogs) who have no place to Be. 

What does it mean to have nowhere to Be? 

All humans need: 

A place to stand. 

A place to sit. 

A place to sleep. 

A place to urinate. 

A place to defecate. 

A place to work. 

And also, people need food, drink and sometimes medical and emotional support. 

All of these needs must be accommodated in some specific place. At election times we hear a lot of talk about “housing first”, but even the housed need some place to be during the day if they can’t get jobs. 

Where are people supposed to simply Be? 

The traditional excuse for these periodic revivals of the Vampire Ordinance is that some people are afraid to go to some parts of Berkeley sometimes because some other people are doing some of these things in public.  

I hate to be rude again, but do get over it. 

All people have to Be somewhere, and until civil society tells them where they can Be, they might be in your face. You will survive. 

Here’s another pertinent cliché: The only thing we have to fear is fear Itself. 

Fear causes baristas to kick Black men out of Starbucks and cops to handcuff them for just for Being there. 

Fear causes waitresses to insult a father on the sidewalk talking to his wife in a sidewalk cafe. 

Fear causes policemen to shoot down a rowdy kid in his Grandma’s back yard. 

Fear causes some people in Berkeley to avoid public places where they’d be perfectly safe and could be enjoying themselves. 

Not all fears should provoke retaliation. Many fears are unfounded.  

I hope that the councilmembers who attended last night’s meeting learned something from the wealth of thoughtful testimony from the concerned citizens who showed up to educate them last night. Since comments were as usual confined to one minute soundbites, they didn’t learn as much as they could have. To public viewers in person or online, councilmembers looked a lot like medieval theologians debating how many angels could sit on the head of a pin as they argued about whether beggars could be 25 feet or 150 feet from a BART entrance. Berkeley can do better.

A policy is a statement of principle against which the actions of the City and City staff are judged. 

It is policy of the city of Berkeley to assist and support all residents whenever possible.

It is the policy of the City to work for adequate housing for all residents.

The City recognizes that immediately unhoused residents need to find unusual and creative methods to protect themselves and their belongings.

It is the policy of the City to treat residents who are unhoused respectfully and to, at the very least, do no harm.

It is with this in mind that we enact a policy which protects the needs and rights of residents both unhoused and housed.

What can you do when a state legislator declares war on her own city?

Vote. Very carefully. Specifically, in the June 5 primary to represent Assembly District 15, which includes Berkeley and several surrounding cities. Also in the governor's race, on the same ballot. So that we don't get fooled again.

The legislator in question is Nancy Skinner, elected in 2016 to the state Senate. Of the 12 candidates competing for the open Assembly seat that Skinner once held, only one – Andy Katz, no relation to this writer – has straightforwardly opposed Skinner's just-defeated SB 827, which would have crippled local governments' control over land use. 

Four rival candidates told me they supported that bill without conditions: Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto (Thurmond's endorsed successor), Owen Poindexter, Sergey Vikramsingh Piterman, and leading fundraiser Buffy Wicks – who also expresses weak support for rent control. Six other hopefuls conditionally supported SB 827's approach, two with some skepticism. (The remaining hopeful never responded to me.) Meanwhile, only one major candidate for governor – Delaine Eastin – supports restoring cities' full authority to stabilize rents. 

War on Local Officials

Nancy Skinner's declaration of war began with sponsoring last year's SB 167 (which is now law). Aimed rather specifically at Berkeley, it fines cities at least $10,000 for each housing unit they choose not to approve. Apparently, Sen. Skinner felt that cities already too cash-strapped to adequately provide basic services needed a major new drain on their budgets. 

This year, she took her declaration of war nuclear by coauthoring, with state Sen. Scott Wiener, the divisive SB 827. As Becky O'Malley, Zelda Bronstein, and others have detailed in past Planet contributions, that bill would have gutted local zoning authority. Based on an expansive definition of transit corridors, SB 827 would have forced the upzoning of already-dense coastal cities. According to expert analyses, the impacted area would have included much of Berkeley, and almost the whole city of San Francisco. 

Craziest Bill I've Ever Seen

SB 827 drew formidable opposition – which it amply earned. The bill invited the massive demolition of existing, affordable, and often rent-stabilized housing stock, to facilitate building new market-rate and luxury housing on a larger scale. 

The bill's wide spectrum of declared opponents included the Sierra Club, the state's influential union Building Trades Council, many affordable-housing and tenants' advocates, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles City Council, the League of California Cities, many small cities' governments, and Berkeley mayor Jesse Arreguin. 

L.A. City Councilman Paul Koretz called SB 827 the craziest bill I’ve ever seen. Beverly Hills Vice Mayor John Mirisch called the bill the wrong prescription...like trying to cure psoriasis with an appendectomy. 

In a critical hearing on April 17, SB 827 was killed (for now) after it mustered only four yes votes on a 13-person committee. Skinner and Wiener accounted for half those four votes, and the other two were Republicans – they couldn't get a single Democrat to join them. This invites a chuckle about how poorly they can count votes. 

But what's far less funny is that these two rogue senators are determined to reintroduce similar city-toppling language next year. (If they don't first sneak it into another 2018 bill, through gut-and-amend.) This means that whoever we elect to the Assembly District 15 seat (being vacated by incumbent Tony Thurmond) might well vote on similarly intrusive legislation in the lower house. 

Leaders Behind the Curve

Which brings us to the June 5 Assembly primary. Among the 12 hopefuls on the ballot, who supports Skinner's bid to cripple local zoning authority, and who defends home rule? 

Almost all of our would-be leaders have been surprisingly behind the surging tide of opposition to SB 827. This is notable because most of the race's Democratic hopefuls express closely-matched progressive stances on reforming Proposition 13, whose tax limitations have crippled local governments' budget capacity since 1978. 

They also broadly support repealing Costa-Hawkins, the 1995 state bill that pre-empted local rent stabilization – directly triggering today's crisis of housing affordability. (As we'll see below, an exception to that tenant-friendly stance is Buffy Wicks.) 

Yet SB 827, in proposing to slash local control over land use, was arguably the demon love child of Prop. 13 and Costa-Hawkins. It's another Sacramento assault on home rule, and on the capacity of local elected officials who – unlike remote Sacramento denizens – remain readily accessible to their constituents. 

Free-Market Fairy Tales

Let's acknowledge sponsors' claims that SB 827 would have somehow improved housing affordability by increasing supply. And let's promptly dispose of those claims, unless you also believe Milton Friedman or Paul Ryan's bedtime stories about the magic of free markets. 

Despite some nominal tenant protections that Wiener and Skinner added when SB 827 was foundering, the bill's basic engine was to permanently destroy lots of existing, rent-stabilized housing. (Costa-Hawkins exempts everything built after 1995 from rent control.) So anything supersized on those demolished structures' lots would have rented to all future tenants at uncontrolled market rates. 

As a further strike on housing affordability, SB 827 would have destroyed one of the few remaining incentives that local governments have to require developers to include a significant share of affordable units in market-rate developments. That incentive is cities' discretionary zoning authority to modify or reject ill-considered projects. 

Add it all up, and SB 827 would have accelerated the unwelcome trend that a recent study documented for the Bay Area during 2010–16: shipping moderate-income people out, and replacing them with people earning significantly more. 

Perhaps the Sierra Club articulated the rotten implications best, in its press release criticizing SB 827's initial draft: 

We support the goal of increasing transit-oriented development to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – but...[a]t the heart of this bill is...state-level preemption. In essence, these bills strip local governments from the decision-making process. Last year we saw this used in Louisiana and Tennessee...to stop local affordable housing mandates for developers, using the very same blunt instrument – removal of local zoning authority. There have also been examples...blocking local fracking bans, deregulating factory farms, suppressing the minimum wage, and most recently,...in Utah...restricting local elected officials’ ability to advocate for public lands protections.

What the Candidates Say

Given SB 827's flaws, I took the opportunity to directly ask several Assembly candidates their positions on this bill just before the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club's primary endorsement panel on January 25. (The moderators asked no questions about SB 827 that night, Club officers allowed no questions from the audience, and the membership endorsed no one.) 

I later emailed candidates whom I'd missed, using contact info they'd registered with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. I also read candidates' online responses to this January, 2018, questionnaire, from a YIMBY (pro-construction) group that asked directly about SB 827. 

Finally, I also reviewed this two-hour video of the Nov. 4, 2017, candidate panel hosted by the the California Democratic Party's African American Caucus. (The candidate panel starts at 24 minutes in, and ends at 2:37. It lets you check out the candidates' demeanor from your nearest YouTube-connected device.) 

Here's what the candidates told me and other questioners: 

• Andy Katz (East Bay Municipal Utility District Director): Told me immediately on Jan. 25 that he opposed SB 827. His questionnaire response is consistent with that, and outlines his support for alternative approaches to encouraging transit-oriented development.
• Rochelle Pardue-Okimoto (Richmond City Councilmember): Told me immediately on Jan. 25 that she supported SB 827. Her questionnaire response is equally terse: I would support this effort by Senator Wiener. (This issue doesn't seem to have consumed much of her thought.)
• Several candidates told me (I'm now paraphrasing several similar responses) that they supported SB 827's general approach, had some concerns about its specifics, and looked forward to seeing how it would be amended. These included Dan Kalb (Oakland City Councilmember, Jan. 25 conversation); Ben Bartlett (Berkeley City Councilmember, March 23 email); and Judy Appel (Berkeley School District Director, March 26 phone call).
• Jovanka Beckles (El Cerrito Vice Mayor): Hard to pin down. On Jan. 25, her aide intercepted me, checked with his office, then told me that it was too early for [Beckles] to have a position on SB 827. My February 18 email to her City Council office was never answered. Her questionnaire response indicated conditional support: she wrote that we cannot develop at the expense of tenant protections and local government control, but then called SB 827 a needed start to a conversation we must be having. Her current website expresses greater skepticism: SB 827 as currently [no date stated] drafted gives developers too many benefits while threatening the welfare and participation in decision-making of the communities and cities it purports to help.
• Cheryl Sudduth: Didn't list an email address, but in her questionnaire response (and other forums), has said she'd conditionally support SB 827 if it were amended to include a specific affordability formula.
• Owen Poindexter: Emailed me on April 2 that he supported SB 827 as it had been amended by that date.
• Raquella Thaman: Emailed me on April 15 that she was skeptical of the bill, but that if it included provisions for low and very low income home ownership, I would be more inclined to support it. (Thaman's platform emphasizes housing ownership as an economic equalizer.)
• Sergey Vikramsingh Piterman: Emailed me on April 25 that my one-line answer is that I support SB 827, though I know it recently did not pass. He then acknowledged that it doesn’t do enough in terms of protections for displacing minority and underserved communities and that the stakes for transit planning would be dramatically increased. ... Ultimately though, we’re going to have rezone [sic] a lot of areas for higher density development, and inevitably some people are going to be displaced.
• Pranav Jandhyala: Never responded to my email.

And then there's Buffy Wicks. 

Buffy Wicks: Rent Control without Rent Control

Wicks is a political-campaign professional who claims significant achievements in high places (read on). And she has led this Assembly race's fundraising. When I got a couple of minutes with her on Jan. 25, she promptly told me that that she supported SB 827. 

I then asked about her statement in the African American Caucus forum video that she supports reforming, but not repealing, Costa-Hawkins because 

we shouldn't let people that work in the tech industry, that have had their apartments for 15 years, they're now making six figures, live in rent-controlled apartments, that's not what it's [rent control] for, so we need to figure out how to adjust for that.

She explained on Jan. 25 that this alluded specifically to a friend of hers who's been living in a rent-controlled San Francisco apartment and now has a $700,000-a-year job at Salesforce. 

So here we have a well-connected candidate who apparently doesn't understand the stabilization part of rent stabilization. Which is not about means-testing individual tenants; it's literally about stabilizing rents, so that no one's changing fortunes can allow them to rapidly bid housing out of the reach of people of modest incomes. 

And this is exactly where Costa-Hawkins has done so much damage, and displaced so many Californians. It's done so by forcing vacancy decontrol on local governments, and by exempting everything built since 1995. 

Wicks (Buffy is my real name) worked on Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and spent 15 months in the Obama White House. From there, her campaign website makes some remarkable claims: 

Buffy is proud to have been an architect of President Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns. She is credited with innovating Obama’s grassroots organizing model. In...the White House...Buffy brought stakeholders and advocates from across the country together to support and eventually pass the Affordable Care Act... .

Wicks next went to work for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. In 2016, Wicks takes credit (elsewhere) for having served as Hillary Clinton for America's: 

chief strategist and manager of contested California primary against Bernie Sanders. Resulting in record turnout and 8-point victory.

What's a Voter to Do?

Apologies right here if I've mischaracterized any candidate's ultimate position on SB 827. (I made contact with different candidates at different times over several weeks, during which the bill was indeed amended, as some candidates had anticipated.) Still, I think we can draw some conclusions: 

Buffy Wicks is probably your candidate if you'd like a centrist, market-friendly, Clintonite Democrat who was proud to help mow down Bernie Sanders. One who distinctly does not support repealing Costa-Hawkins, and who's more broadly lukewarm about rent control. 

Andy Katz (no relation, one last time) appears to be your only choice if you think home rule appropriately preserves accountability, and believe that local governments should retain control over basic matters like land use. 

And if you expect good constituent relations from hopefuls who didn't bother to answer voters' questions even while competing for office – note above the two candidates who never responded to my emails. 

Seeking a Tenant-Friendly Governor?

Also on the June 5 ballot is the primary to nominate our next governor. There, the sole major candidate who straightforwardly advocates repealing Costa-Hawkins is Delaine Eastin, who twice held the state schools chief's office that Tony Thurmond now seeks. During her prior eight years in the state Legislature, Eastin served with great distinction – nearly single-handedly dragging real results out of that institution's murk. 

Unlike that race's two erratic leading Democrats (Gavin Newsom and Antonio Villaraigosa), Eastin has no bizarre behavior, flip-flopping on major issues, pandering speeches at the feet of Central Asian tyrants, or kneecapping of fellow Democrats to answer for. If you're seeking a no-regrets primary first choice for governor, she's worth a serious look. 

Civics According to The Who

As for our Assembly candidates, at least give them credit for telling us where they stand. To my knowledge, during Sen. Skinner's 2016 primary and general-election campaigns, the then-termed-out former Assemblymember said nothing about crippling local governments for the benefit of big market-rate housing developers. For example, in her 2016 League of California Cities questionnaire, Skinner feigned restrained deference to home rule: 

In general I oppose the pre-emption of local control and support the right of cities to determine the appropriate course of action for their jurisdiction and their constituents. There are limited and specific times or issues however when [various groups' needs] may require an action that goes beyond local control. ... Land use incentives to increase infill housing or housing affordability can be an example where state action can assist localities.

Note those sugar-coated words incentives and assist.In the same questionnaire, she also responded: 

I support very targeted adjustments to CEQA and other regulations designed to reduce time delays for housing projects that meet otherwise existing requirements.

Perhaps Skinner had a change of heart under the influence of her new intellectual mentor, Scott Wiener, who has led the assault on home rule. Long divisive in San Francisco politics, Wiener was narrowly elected to the state Senate in 2016 over progressive rival Jane Kim, with generous support from developers and the building trades. 

But don't give Wiener or Skinner credit for any new thinking. Both are doing the bidding of the developer-friendly lobby YIMBY Action (funded by tech executives, other big employers, developers, and real-estate investors); and of aggressive litigants suethesuburbs.org, whose name tells their story – except for their targeting of dense cities like Berkeley. 

Realistically, as the protégée of Berkeley's former pro-development mayor Tom Bates, Skinner should surprise no one in leaving no earth unturned for large developers of market-rate and luxury housing. 

In Berkeley's 2016 mayoral race, after ranked-choice votes were allocated, Tom Bates' chosen successor had been repudiated by a stunning margin that appeared to approach 2:1. This is evidence that, when presented with developers' minions in fake progressive clothing, Berkeley voters have the capacity to not get fooled again. 

In the June 5 primary, we get another chance to prove exactly that. 

 

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Editor's Note: Don't miss this . 

 

Weak-kneed legislators bowed to political pressure and special interest groups, this week, and voted to advance Senate Bill 828 to the Appropriations Committee. As amended, the latest version of Senator Scott Wiener’s bill, which was heavily supported by development interests, would increase every city’s Regional Housing Needs Assessment quota for low income units by 25% of the existing requirement. More significantly, it also changes that quota from a planning goal to a mandatory housing production quota, with heavy penalties to cities that fail to meet it.

This completely nonsensical and arbitrary legislation, primarily driven by “politically correct” rhetoric, may have very dire economic, environmental and social consequences for all San Francisco Bay Area cities, except for San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. 

As reported by LBReport.com, 

SB 828 would change… current RHNA numbers from state mandated "goals" for cities to incorporate into their local land use planning documents into de facto required outcomes, with any "deficiencies" in actually produced "needed" housing units rolled over to increase the number of housing units that a city must produce in subsequent planning periods. 

That outcome could make it more difficult for some cities (already assigned high "needed" numbers) to meet the requirements of SB 35 (a bill authored by Sen. Wiener and enacted in 2017) that now requires cities to give "streamlined" approval to housing developers for multi-unit housing projects if a city hasn't met meet "needed" housing units. 

Historically, the vast majority of Bay Area cities have been unable to meet the out sized, top-down quotas demanded of them. The reason is simple. Cities don’t build housing – private developers build housing. And, since the vast majority of Bay Area cities have no financial incentives to offer developers and very limited available land, it is assured that small cities will never be able to meet these new, compounding quotas, and will suffer significant financial consequences. 

In addition to being required to provide developers with streamlining of the approval process (removal of review of impacts on traffic, parking, infrastructure, the environment, etc.), under SB 35 (passed in September 2017), “any reasonable person” (meaning, any outside advocacy group) can now sue cities for not meeting their RHNA mandates. 

SB 35 also shifted the burden of legal proof on to cities, to show they made critical findings to not approve projects, and if they fail to do that, a judge can now assess unspecified financial penalties on non-compliant cities. 

The negative financial consequences for small cities and their residents are incalculable. 

 

Here are just some of the reasons that SB 828 is an insufferable bad piece of legislation: 

 

The premise of SB 828 is flawed: Cities don’t build housing, private developers do. 

SB 828 is based on the same fallacy as SB 827. It assumes that cities build housing in order to comply with their RHNA quota that is reflected in their Housing Element. This is untrue. Cities can only provide certain limited incentives but the market decides what type of development proposals are submitted. Because of this, it is unlikely that most of the municipalities in the San Francisco Bay Area would ever get out from under their endlessly accumulating, unbuilt RHNA quota. 

The 125% RHNA figure in SB 828 is arbitrary and violates all existing RHNA calculation procedures and fact based “findings,” as required by state law. 

Since its inception, the methodology for calculating the Regional Housing Needs Assessment figures is based on detailed and fact-based analysis of population growth and jobs growth. These studies are thorough and vetted and updated to reflect actual projections. The total RHNA allocation for a Regional Metropolitan Planning Organization (MTC/ABAG) is, therefore, a constantly changing number based on actual conditions. 

As is, the RHNA adapts to statistically provable need. It is a dynamic methodology that already accomplishes what SB 828 attempts to do. Imposing afixed 125% quota is not needed and is completely nonsensical 

The 125% RHNA figure in SB 828 is arbitrary and unsupported by any reasonable economic, environmental or social impacts analysis. 

The existing RHNA determination process by its very nature is reflective of credible economic, environmental and social impacts data, which is reflected in the population and jobs growth data it is based upon. To arbitrarily change the RHNA outcomes of that analysis, essentially negates the entire rationale for determining an accurate RHNA and turns the RHNA quota into a purely political tool driven by personal agendas and personal prejudices. 

SB 828 is yet another naked attack on California's dwindling middle class and our livable suburban communities. 

The 125% RHNA figure found in SB 828 is prejudicial against all but the largest cities in the state. 

In the SF Bay Area, only three cities of the 103 municipalities will ever be able to meet the arbitrary 125% RHNA quota: San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose.The other municipalities and particularly smaller cities simply do not have the available land to do so. And, simply saying that single family zoned land can be transformed into multifamily zoned land in a way that makes housing development feasible is incorrect.[1] 

The requirement in SB 828 that the entire, original 100% of RHNA (still on the table) now be allocated to multi-family housing, negatively impact the economic tax base of all but the largest cities in the state and increase commuting times an environmental impacts. 

Traditionally, the RHNA is divided into various percentages of each type of housing found in a city (based on federal statistical guidelines): from 30% of median income to market rate housing.SB 828 appears to require all the original RHNA (100%) to be allocated to multifamily housing, but without any income requirements. 

One would assume that the other 100% will be allocated the same as it is now, among all the housing / income types, but the bill is not clear on this. 

However, small cities simply do not have any economically viable[2] land to designate for multifamily development except their commercial land (office, retail, industry). If that land is rezoned for housing, cities will lose their major tax base from commerce. This will turn more cities into bedroom communities of major jobs centers and increase commuting times. 

In the context of SB 35, penalizing cities for failing to build housing may violate the unfunded mandate provisions of California Housing Law. 

Legislation passed in September of 2017, particularly SB 35 but including other bills, have now created an unprecedented legal nexus of penalties between RHNA quotas and potential financial penalties and consequences for municipalities. As it now stands, if “any reasonable person” decides that a municipality has failed to do what it has to do to promote housing affordability and to fulfill its RHNA obligations, those persons can sue for damages and a court can assess financial penalties against a city. 

It is our opinion that such an occurrence will constitute a violation of the California State Constitution and the unfunded mandate provisions, based on the state’s interpretation of Dillon’s Rule. 

This has not yet been tested in the courts and suggests that legislators should exercise extreme caution before introducing additional housing laws, until the impacts of the 17 laws passed in 2017 are fully known. 

SB 828 requires municipalities to now engage in compiling racial profiling data, in violation of federal Fair Housing laws. 

Since 1937, California housing law has mirrored federal housing law and used income levels as the basis for assessing the need for “affordable housing” and determining the RHNA quotas. 

SB 828 introduces the concept of and incorrectly mixes “racial” profiling into the Housing Element and RHNA process, which promotes racial profiling, discrimination and reverse discrimination and other abuses that are illegal under federal housing law. In addition, there are no legal standards, federal or state, to look to in order to interpret the findings being required by SB 828. 

SB 828 requires municipalities to now engage in compiling “wealth” profiling data, in violation of federal Fair Housing laws, in that it proposes to penalize individual “wealth” as a special class. 

Since 1937, California housing law has mirrored federal housing law and used income levels as the basis for assessing the need for “affordable housing” and determining the RHNA quotas. It is not based upon nor is it prejudicial against the personal wealth of individuals residing in a municipality. 

SB 828 introduces the concept of “wealth” profiling into the Housing Element and RHNA process, which promotes reverse discrimination and other abuses that are illegal under federal housing law. In addition, there are no legal standards, federal or state, to look to in order to interpret the findings being required by SB 828. 

SB 828 appears to give powers to unelected agencies over locally elected government, in violation of state law. 

SB 828 indicates that unelected state and regional agencies (e.g., the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, etc.) that are involved in the RHNA creation and allocation process, will have decision making powers over elected governments that are not subject to appeal. 

As far as we know, this is unprecedented in California housing law. 

LBReport.com reports 

SB 828 now heads to the state Senate's Appropriations Committee, a "non-policy" committee that's supposed to consider only fiscal impacts of proposed bills but as a practical matter operates as a majority-party controlled "gatekeeper" preventing bills from reaching the Senate floor if not supported by majority party (Dem) leadership. The Appropriations Committee is chaired by state Senator Ricardo Lara (D, LB-Huntington Park). 

 

 

[1] Converting single family zoning to multifamily would likely increase "land" costs, because the land/house values of residential lots is much higher than fallow commercial acreage. For example, if a typical Marin County house is worth $1 million on a 50 x 100 lot (approx. 1/8th acre), so that's $8 million per acre in land cost to develop multifamily. At the same time, economically obsolete commercial parcels in town sell for about $4,000,000 per acre. If no one can “pencil” affordable housing now at $4 million per acre, how will they do it at $8 million per acre? 

 

[2] See Footnote 1. 

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Bob Silvestri is president of Community Venture Partners, Inc.,the sponsor of the Marin Post, where this article first appeared. He is a licensed architect (retired), is NCARB certified and holds a Bachelors of Architecture with honors from the Cooper Union School of Architecture in New York City.

Except for the newcomers, the people at the Special Meeting of the Berkeley City Council on Thursday, April 26th, 2018 at Longfellow Middle School probably wondered if they hadn't already had this bad dream. The fix is in. The seats are uncomfortable. Anybody who can't hike a flight of stairs is scattered across the floor. And one voice from the Downtown Berkeley Association's business group is considered the rough equivalent of hundreds of voices from the rest of the town. 

If you are new to the Sidewalk Wars, they began over forty years ago when developers and politicians didn't bother to wonder what would happen to poor people if they converted low-income housing, single room occupancy housing, boarding houses, etc. to condos and penthouses. People doubled up, converted porches, garages, etc., but those who were one illness or job loss away from losing it all ended up discretely living in parks, cars, or couch-surfing so they could stay close to jobs or family. 

That gold mine is still giving. We have yet to find politicians who can stand up and say no to building more and more housing for the people who need it least. Tinkering with sidewalk laws, on the other hand, is styled as "compassionate" in a town that clearly knows better, since it soundly voted down the last attempt at a sidewalk law, but doesn't really like holding its politicians' feet to the fire on its way to the mescal flight and the book fair. 

The special hell the Berkeley City Council suffered after the captioners' break at the Special Meeting is on video on the City of Berkeley's webpage though the audio makes them sound like distressed fish underwater. Watch in awe as they try to rationalize bizarre descriptions of and instructions regarding what one can do with "cushioning" (I have some suggestions), and the niceties of whether or not dogs are actually "stationary." They looked as miserable as they deserved to be. 

If I'm being hard on the less enthusiastic among them it's because instead of having a press conference before the meeting denouncing this discriminatory effort—given that the Planning Department still hasn't been able to find a single business with tables, chairs, etc. in front of their businesses that actually has a legal permit—it was a lot of posturing and putting lipstick on the pig. Kriss Worthington from District Seven was sick, and Ben Bartlett of District Three was absent, so it was Jesse and the gals having a miserable time putting a target on the backs of people who have next to nothing except the common sense to come and speak for one measly minute because what the hey, common sense and principle in scarce supply is stocked pretty well on the street and in the networks of people who know this is a civil rights issue and at least they can entertain each other. 

It's a draft, the councilmembers kept saying, and that's true. It could have been worse, they noted privately, and that's true, too. But standing outside that meeting in the Bay Area's April chill, one has to wonder why a town's leadership keeps throwing the same mess at the same wall hoping it sticks. Because it doesn't take much effort in this internet-crazy town to count up all the vacancies.

The persistence of gender inequality in the workplace ranks high among the disgraceful and shameful traditions in American society. According to the US Bureau of Census, the average income for women is about 80 percent of male earnings. For full time year round workers, women would have to work 44 additional days a year to close the gap. 

 

The good news is that since 1979, the wages of women have climbed 30 percent. The bad news is that male wages since 1979 have stagnated. Although men's income continues to have a considerable edge over women's, the median income of male wages have dropped by 7.6 percent As a result of these developments, the gap between the earnings of men and women has climbed from 62.4 to 80 percent. 

The important question is to what extent, if any, is the decline in the gender gap due to women's role in reducing the pay gap or to significant developments in the economy that have been especially unfavorable to men? According to the liberal think tank, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), not wage gains by women in the workplace but rather the falling wages of men that account for the progress toward reducing the wage gap between women and men. The EPI blames the weakening of organized labor, the decline in male dominant industries, and the off-shoring of jobs that were held mostly by men.  

The EPI is right that several important institutional factors have conspired to suppress wage growth for men. But women too have not escaped the economic assault. The weakening and decline of the labor movement has also been detrimental to women, who make up more than 45 percent of union members. As union members, women are not discriminated against in labor contracts. 

With regard to the export of jobs, the impact on women also has been considerable. As President Trump has complained, the pharmaceutical industry has been a major exporter of jobs. About 42 percent of the industry's work force are women. In the textile, apparel, and leather industries, which are major exporters of jobs, over 56 percent of its work force are women. Another major exporter are companies that manufacture computers and electronic products. Over thirty percent of their work force are women. 

Particularly ominous is that California in March shed 7,200 jobs. Women as well as men lost their jobs. A substantial number of these jobs were in the leisure and hospitality industry. Women make up slightly more than half of the industry's employees. In short, the EPI's explanation for the declining wage gap does not fully account for why men particularly have taken such a beating. 

The EPI's major oversight has been its failure to take into account the tremendous competition that males have been confronting as a result of the huge increase in the number of women, particularly married women, entering the labor market. A growing number of families have been experiencing hardship because the wages earned by their spouse have been inadequate. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, which does opinion polling, 56 percent interviewed said that their family's income is falling behind the cost of living. To supplement family income, women have been forced into the labor force. The percentage of married women who have joined the work force has climbed from 26 percent in 1950 to 67 percent currently. 

To improve their job prospects, many women have been graduating college and also obtaining advanced degrees. By 2014, women made up a majority of college graduates and almost a third obtained advanced degrees in law, business, accounting and computer and information sciences. 

Yet despite the stagnation of male wages, from the perspective of many employers there is still a significant wage advantage to recruiting women. As a result, many women have been taking jobs that have been traditionally occupied by men. Moreover, the decline in physical and manual work and the growth of white collar jobs has made it easier for women to compete. Women's share of professional jobs has increased to 49 percent, and jobs of women in management has doubled since the early seventies to 36 percent. The percent of women lawyers has gone up from the single digits to about 33 percent. And jobs in banking and financial management held by women has climbed from 9 to 39 percent. 

Many employers, in order to cut their wage costs, have even been willing to hire women for blue collar jobs. 60 percent of bartenders are now women. Even jobs for female butchers in packing houses have climbed by more than a third. Also federal contractors and private firms, including Sears, Roebuck and Company have been attempting to hire women for traditionally blue collar jobs. 

When women enter these and many other occupations in large numbers, the average wage for all workers drop. Drawing on US census data, researchers found that when the share of women workers increased in any occupation, the wages for men tend to decline. In recreation related jobs, for example, wages dropped 57 percent, designer wages declined 34 percent, housekeepers fell 21 percent, ticket agents fell 43 percent, and the wages of biologists declined 18 percent.  

What can be done to increase wages for both genders as well as to abolish wage inequality? As a labor spokesperson commented, it is important for working people to realize that "gender equality is not just a woman's fight. It is everyone's fight". The ideal organizational context for working people to stand together are labor unions. In union contracts women and men benefit equally. Among the results is that the gap in wages for female union members is about half the size of the gap among non-union female workers. Improving the rights and ability of working people to unionize is key to achieving equal pay for all workers.

Once again, US made weapons sold to our “good friend”, Saudi Arabia are raining down on innocent men, women and children in Yemen. How can we call ourselves an ethical, law abiding nation when we continue to remain silent when such atrocities are being committed on a daily basis? WE ARE COMPLICIT IN THE MOST HEINESS WAR CRIMES. Donald Trump and his enablers in Congress and his supporters are guilty. I shudder to think how they will explain their silence when they come face to face with their creator. The feigned reverence for God and Jesus Christ is gross hypocrisy in light of our obsession for trade, profits and lack of concern for innocent lives.  

According to Shireen Al-Adeimi, a Yemeni doctoral candidate at Harvard University, at least 20 people died Sunday when a US-Saudi-led coalition airstrike hit a wedding party in northern Yemen. Most of the dead were reportedly women and children who were gathered in one of the wedding party tents. The bride was among the dead. Medics and residents said more than 46 others—including 30 children—were also injured. The attack on the Yemeni wedding party was one of at least three airstrikes over the weekend that killed Yemeni civilians. A family of five died in an airstrike in the province of Hajjah. And 20 civilians died on Saturday when fighter jets bombed a bus near the city of Taiz. Please call the White House and demand and immediate halt to this madness.

It is extremely doubtful whether Mr. Trump really understands the complexities of the Iran nuclear deal. It was all about taking cheap shots (the deal is insane” and “ridiculous”) at his predecessor and acting as the “tough guy” with his war mongering posse, John Bolton et al, likely dragging America into another dangerous conflict. Both “tough guys” evaded the draft. 

Clearly, Mr. Trump is totally unaware of our own very dark history in Iranian affairs. In 1953-54 the CIA (and British intelligence) orchestrated the overthrow of Iran's (parliamentary elected) Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who had sought to build a true democracy. His major offense against the West was nationalization of Iran’s oil fields, thereby denying the British control of Iran's chief natural resource. The CIA ushered in the demonic Shah of Iran who, as an absolute monarch, bought billions of dollars’ worth of weapons from the US, established a vicious secret police (SAVAK) that carried out torture and murder on a wide scale. In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini led the Shia Iranian Revolution expelling the Shah. US. Teflon President Reagan then generated revenue to support the Nicaraguan thuggish Contras by selling weapons to Iran (an impeachable offense). Seizing the opportunity, our defense contractors sold billions of weapons to Iraq in its eight year war with Iran violating every norm of human behavior. In a perfect world based on human rights we should have apologized to Iran and offered them massive reparations for interfering in their internal affairs.

When I was a teenager, my grandfather Harry used to dine with us most nights. After dinner he would deliver a homily, usually, "Beware the Russians!" Grandpa Harry warned us about the Russians because they had no ethics: they would say and do anything to win. If he was alive now, Harry would still fear the Russians, but he would also warn of Christians, because some of them are willing to say and do anything to win. Witness their support of Donald Trump. 

Although their numbers are declining, roughly 72 percent of Americans identify as Christians—approximately 240 million, the largest Christian population in any nation. More than 10 percent of U.S. Christians do not belong to a congregation. Of those who do belong to a congregation, the largest group contains evangelical Christians—although their numbers are declining, roughly 60 million are White Evangelical Christians. 

80 percent of White Evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016. In their recent study, "Make America Christian Again: Christian Nationalism and Voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election" sociologists Andrew Whitehead, Joseph Baker, and Samuel Perry conclude that for many White Evangelicals, "voting for Trump was... a symbolic defense of the United States’ perceived Christian heritage." 

Whitehead, Baker, and Perry used data from the latest Baylor Religion Study to unearth the core beliefs of White Evangelical Christians. The sociologists identified six questions as measures of Christian Nationalism: The first is "the federal government should enforce strict separation of church and state." Christian Nationalists reject this because they believe that the United States has a special relationship with the Christian God. White Evangelical Nationalists respond positively to these five notions: 

• “The federal government should declare the United States a Christian nation.”
• “The federal government should advocate Christian values.”
• “The federal government should allow the display of religious symbols in public spaces.”
• “The success of the United States is part of God’s plan.”
• “The federal government should allow prayer in public schools.”

White Evangelicals support Trump because he appears to agree with them. In an interview with the Huffington Post Aindrew Whitehead noted that since his election Trump has given Christian Nationalists direct access to the White House. This has led them to forgive his conduct: "They believe God can use anyone, ‘even a thrice married, non-pious, self-proclaimed public playboy,’" to form a Christian nation]. “For Christian nationalists, the end goal is a society that favors Christianity in various aspects... How that project is achieved is of little consequence to them." [Emphasis added] 

If my grandfather was alive, he'd be shocked that these Christians have adopted the "say and do anything to win" morality of the Russians. The White Evangelical Nationalists have abandoned mainstream Christian ethics. 

Christian ethics is an elastic concept and you'll get different definitions from Christian to Christian. 

If we focus on the teachings of Jesus -- that is, emphasize the ethical teachings promoted in the New Testament -- three ethical principles stand out. The first regards personal integrity: mainstream Christians believe that those who call themselves Christians should be straightforward and honest; they should speak the truth. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5) Jesus said; "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all... All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one." Christians should be forthright; they should not lie. 

The second ethical teaching is about social relations: mainstream Christians believe that Christians should be fair and compassionate. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 7) Jesus said: "Whatever you desire for men to do to you, you shall also do to them." Treat others as you would like them to treat you. 

The third ethical teaching is about equality: mainstream Christians believe that Christians should treat regard others as equals. Jesus brought a message of love: "A new commandment I give you, love one another." (John 13:34) Paul summarized this as: "There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28) 

Donald Trump does not practice these ethical teachings. He is a liar, bully, sexist and racist. He is an apostate. 

Why then do White Evangelical Christians support Trump? 

There are three explanations. The first is that they do not believe what the mainstream media says about Trump. They do not believe that he is a liar, bully, sexist, and racist. White Christian Evangelicals live in an information silo where they get their information from pro-Trump sources and, therefore, trust Trump over mainstream media sources such as The Washington Post. 

The second explanation is sociological. The White Evangelical Christians support Trump because their pastor or preacher tells them they should. That is, these Christian -- and their friends -- do not decide independently how to vote -- or what is right. 

The third explanation is theological. White Evangelical Christians recognize Trump for what he is but they do not care because Trump is furthering their goal of a Christian Nation and "how that project is achieved is of little consequence to them." From this perspective, Christian Nationalists have abandoned mainstream, New Testament Christian ethics and instead adopted Old Testament ethics where—because of the omnipresence of —it is permissible to say and do anything to win. 

Whenever White Evangelical Nationalists support Trump, they are abandoning mainstream Christian ethics. They, too, are apostates. 

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