I am 35 years old and I still live in a rental unit because I graduated into a recession and can not afford the financial risk of home buying. My rent controlled, seismically questionable unit built in 1966 was market rate and is now it is renting for $3000. Year over year of doing nothing has caused the rents to exceed inflation, and the next set of wildfires in California will make this problem even more dire. I have seen many affordable projects get scrapped or delayed due to local control and it's heartbreaking. We must tell exclusionary cities such as Beverly Hills, Palo Alto, and La Cañada-Flintridge to build more homes. It is time to end the era of expensive, luxury single family homes being the dominant type of structure in California and to embrace characters and not neighborhood character. We can not move forward in California or take any leadership in progressive movements until we have ensured a future for the younger people growing up in California. That means increasing the capacity to build affordable and market rate homes near transit. I hope Senator Atkins can bring SB50 to the floor without any more delay so that we can build more homes. -more-

Somehow it seems that when we (the people) attempt to participate in making policy for this city, and we point out things that are not quite kosher, or that seem to impose something extraneous, or even perhaps nefarious, something that doesn’t seem to arise from the lives of city’s residents, someone in government will say to us, “Don’t work against us, work with us.” Do you have any idea how hypocritical that sounds? -more-

The program hosts at KPFA (94.1 FM) in Berkeley are in the midst of another fundraising drive. They aren't doing well; they are still hundreds of thousands of dollars short of their goal with only a few days left. So, their calls for donations are becoming more strident. -more-

These criminals must be stopped. Their deceit should not be allowed to stand.

Lizardo glosses over, here, the fact that (like Blackwell Hall), the student housing they hope to build will be privately developed and operated for profit. In other words, they plan a theft of public land and a perpetual gouging of students.

The not-for-profit component Lizardo mentions -- "supportive housing" -- will apparently be by a conventional non-profit developer using low income tax credits. That is a slippery way of saying that the supportive housing will ALSO be a theft of public land to provide perpetual private profit (to the tax credit bond holders and lenders). -more-

At the Le Conte meeting & forum held last Autumn, I mentioned that the campus efforts at People's Park would pick up with the hiring of several leaders in our Capital Strategies Group and subsequent steps they will take identify and secure our development partners.

Michelle Starratt, who has a lot of experience working on affordable housing in the Bay Area through the Alameda County Housing and Community Development, was hired to serve as our Director of Housing Development and Leasing. She is taking the lead on all the housing projects that were identified in the Student Housing Task Force Report the campus released about two years ago. As such she will be the principal leader of the development project at People's Park.

One of the first steps in all of this to identify and select a Non-Profit Developer that will partner with university on the development of the Supportive Housing Component of the multi-faceted development project at People's Park. See the attached the RFQ for more details of the role the Non Profit Developer will play.

The public planning process for the Supportive Housing Component and the other elements of project (smaller park, student housing, commemoration of the park's history) will be get underway once the NonProfit Developer is on board. As I mentioned at the forum, the campus planning process for development projects will include opportunities for community input and review by city staff and leaders.

(Please direct any replies directly to Ruben via email or phone.)

Ruben Lizardo

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On 17 January 2018, US Border Patrol agents arrested Dr. Scott Warren, a 36-year old Human Rights Defender and humanitarian aid volunteer with an organization called “No More Deaths.” His crime - coming to the rescue of two undocumented migrants providing them with humanitarian aid in the desert town of Ajo, where he lives. He faces up to 20 years in prison, if convicted on all charges. The arrest came hours after the release of a report documenting the willful destruction by border agents of humanitarian aid supplies at the USA–Mexico border areas. His trial begins on 29 May 2019. I ask concerned readers to demand all criminal charges be dropped and the immediate release of this Good Samaritan so he can continue his vital humanitarian work. Please send an email to Mr. Michael Bailey, United States Attorney, District of Arizona, United States Courthouse 405 W. Congress Street, Suite 4800 Tucson, Arizona 85701 - Email Michael.bailey@usdoj.gov -more-

The Internet age has made “I told you so” a lot easier to say.

Case in point: the whiney, self-serving op-ed by James Comey which appeared in my Thursday New York Times.

Title and subtitle: “James Comey: How Trump Co-opts Leaders Like Bill Barr: Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive this president.”

The piece, published just in time to pile on with the Democrats’ fully justified disgust at Barr’s mendacious performance before a Senate committee the previous day, is a wordy description of how virtuous men like Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein [and Jim Comey?] are gradually compromised by sucking up [he uses fancier words] to Donald Trump. The ending is especially stirring:

“…to stay, you must be seen as on his team, so you make further compromises. You use his language, praise his leadership, tout his commitment to values.

“And then you are lost. He has eaten your soul.”

There’s just one problem. If you look back on the public history of both Barr and Comey, you’ll discover that they deserve each other. People who’ve known them before have predicted what they’re doing now. They’re not exactly cut from the same cloth: Barr has always been an unprincipled schemer, whereas Comey has specialized in self-deceptive self-aggrandizement. But both of their souls have long since been off the menu. -more-