As part of Kingfest Week, the East Bay Media Center will screen Ely Landau and Richard Kaplan's documentary film 'King, A Filmed Record, Montgomery to Memphis' at 6:45, Friday January 24th in the Center at 1939 Addison, between Milvia & MLK, a block from Downtown Berkeley BART. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1970. 'King, A Filmed Record' is "an epic documentary, three hours long." 

There will be an intermission. Further information: (510) 843-3699 Tickets: $8. Sliding scale for students, elders and the community. At the door or Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/king-montgomery-to-memphis-film-screening-tickets-89788873939?utm-medium

A vehicle struck and killed someone on a sidewalk in Berkeley as its driver tried to flee from a UC Berkeley police officer on Monday morning, a police spokesman said. 

At about 10:30 a.m., the campus police officer was driving on Sixth Street when he saw a gray Nissan four-door sedan parked along the curb line and heard a woman inside the vehicle screaming for help, Berkeley police spokesman Officer Byron White said. 

As the officer approached the Nissan, the driver sped away and ended up on University Avenue west of Sixth Street, where it hit and killed a female pedestrian on the sidewalk, according to White. Her name has not yet been released. 

The Nissan continued fleeing onto Interstate Highway 80 and remained at large as of Monday afternoon, White said. He said a description of the driver and more details about the vehicle were not immediately available. 

Roads in the area were closed until Monday evening when they reopened at 7:20 p.m., according to police.  

Investigators are hoping anyone with information about the case or surveillance footage from nearby homes or businesses can help lead to the arrest of the driver. Anyone with information is asked to call the Berkeley police homicide unit at (510) 981-5741.

The group Moms 4 Housing announced Monday that a sale is being negotiated of a house in Oakland that they had been occupying from November until last week when they were evicted. 

The home at 2928 Magnolia St. was purchased in July by the Southern California-based firm Wedgewood Properties, but a group of homeless mothers moved into the unoccupied home on Nov. 18, prompting various community rallies about the city's housing crisis and a series of court hearings that ended with a judge ordering their eviction. 

The eviction took place last Tuesday, with two mothers and two of their supporters arrested at the home. 

But on Monday, Moms 4 Housing announced that a deal had been brokered between their group, Wedgewood, and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's office to sell the home to the Oakland Community Land Trust, a nonprofit that buys properties and converts them to affordable housing. 

"This is what happens when we organize, when people come together to build the beloved community," said Dominique Walker, one of the mothers. According to the mayor's office, the property will be purchased for a price not to exceed its appraised value. 

Wedgewood also issued a statement about the negotiation agreement Monday. 

"We are honored and inspired to collaborate with the city of Oakland on reasonable, thoughtful, and organized actions to address the issue of homelessness and housing," the company said.

Our support is needed with a big showing tomorrow night at City Council January 21, 7 pm, 1231 Addison, Berkeley Unified School District Board Room. It’s hard to know what time this will come up and what kind of tactics will be used to sabotage it. 

You may have at times had reservations about sanctioned homeless camps, but I am wholly in support of Establishing an Outdoor Emergency Shelter. This is the only way we will every get consistent garbage pick up, basic services and stop the harassment of chasing the homeless from lone location to another.  

If you can’t show up at the very least please send a very short email of support to Council@cityofberkeley.info and place a phone call to Kate and your Council member.  

Here is the item:  

44.

Establishing an Outdoor Emergency Shelter (Reviewed by Health, Life Enrichment, Equity & Community Committee) Supplemental material (Supp 1) From: Councilmembers Harrison and Davila, Mayor Arreguin, and Councilmember Robinson Recommendation: 1. Refer to the City Manager to establish an outdoor emergency shelter in Berkeley. Such a shelter should consider the following amenities to be provided but not required: A. Climate-controlled, wind-resistant durable tents with wooden pallets for support. B. Seeking an agency to manage and oversee the emergency shelter. C. Portable toilet service and handwashing service. D. Shower and sanitation services E. Garbage pickup and safe needle disposal. 2. Refer to the November budget process $615,000 to be considered alongside other Measure P recommendations. 3. Temporarily waive BMC Article 9 Section 19.28.100 Section N106, to allow for the installation of tents and membrane structures that may be erected for longer than 180 days even if they do not meet all physical requirements. 4. Refer to the City Manager protocol for selecting residents that mirror other shelter selection criteria and are less restrictive than HUD protocols. Financial Implications: See report Contact: Kate Harrison, Councilmember, District 4, (510) 981-7140

Berkeley Plaza, aka 2211 Harold Way, seems, this time, to be really really dead. At the last minute of the last business day before January 20, which is the Martin Luther King holiday, Berkeley planning director Timothy Burroughs replied in the negative to a letter from the attorney for HSR Properties seeking an extension to the use permit which had been granted by the City of Berkeley almost five years ago.

Three extensions had already been granted to two conditions on the use permit which originally imposed a 180-day deadline to submit a building permit application and pay all building-permit related fees promptly. The fees, which were due at the end of 2019, had not been paid.

The third extension is due to expire on Jan. 20, 2020, this Monday.

These conditions were originally imposed "to ensure that projects that receive approval from the City move forward in a timely manner to advance the goals of the City's Downtown Area Plan, which prioritizes transit-oriented development."

The DAP provided for three buildings of up to 180 feet in height. The other two are moving forward in construction, but Burroughs points out that "The condition of approval is designed to ensure that once a project gets approved, it gets built."

His letter can be seen here:

As of 11:30 on Friday, January 17, I haven't been able to talk to anyone at Berkeley City Hall to find out if city staff are gifting HSR properties with a fourth extension on the use permit for 2211 Harold Way, which has tied up the Downtown Plan for, oh, I don't know, maybe 5 years. I'm holding up my comments on the transaction until the deal goes down, since the last window will close on January 20, but, oh dear, that's a holiday. I think today's the day, as you can see from the several Public Comments posted on the BDP front page. It's a constant source of wonder for me that Berkeley citizens know exactly what's going on but city staff pretend they don't.

Let us talk about speech. Not “free speech,” nor the "right" to free speech, which are simply abstractions. We wish to "talk" about speech in the sense of “having spoken.” It is not abstract. To have spoken means someone has heard and understood. Without that, one simply duplicates the proverbial tree falling in the forest, etc.

We will be "talking" here about "speech" in its political incarnation. There will be a proposal about it at the end of this essay.

#####

There is a strange pro forma routine practiced in city government procedures (Councils, Commissions, etc.). it is frivolously called “Public Comment.” When people avail themselves of this, they get two minutes. That is their “field ration.” If ten or more people show up to speak on an item, then each gets only one minute. That is their “K-ration” (in WWII terminology). These are combat rations, the first referring to food carried during extended operations, and the latter to provisions for intense short-term engagement with the enemy.

Most people have gotten used to these time limits. They have long since ceased to be considered a travesty of democratic principles. They pretend to permit everyone to get their word in. Yet they form part of rules of engagement, on this field of battle for democracy between the necessities that bring people to speak versus council’s eagerness to curtail speaking time. The sense of humiliation, or of being disparaged, means there are casualties. 

Why do people have to come to council to speak?

Many people look askance at long Public Comment lines on controversial topics. They think that people are only there to complain, or to be self-important, or to hear themselves talk. And sometimes it might appear like that when people sound vaguely repetitive, or making bland or emotive statements. Insofar as what speakers say rarely gets included in council’s thinking, one might conclude that the comments have little importance for them. It is as if council subjects itself to the process to maintain a façade of democratic procedure. It is in tune with the notion that democracy can be summed up as simply the right to vote. The implication is, for those already elected, they have merely to oblige people by granting them the right to speak. But this is a very superficial view of democracy. The speakers are not recognized as having spoken. 

The Fundamental Principle of Democracy is that those who will be affected by a policy should be the ones who articulate the issues at stake and decide on the policy that will affect them as people with respect to those issues. 

That means it is more than just having a vote. Indeed, if all one has is a vote, one ends up voting on things other people have said or done, without real involvement in them. 

When City Council passed a law controlling sleeping in an RV in city streets, were any of the RV dwellers, who were to be affected by that policy, included in the process of writing it? No. Not one. When council passed a mean little ordinance requiring homeless people to keep their possessions in a 9 square foot area, were there any homeless people involved in writing that? No. Not one. When council decided to stay inscribed in the Urban Shield program, were any of the researchers, who opposed it on the basis of extensive study of its politics and technologies included in that decision? No. Not one. When the city hired a consultant to research racial bias in police department operations, and police use of force against peaceful demonstrators, were any of the victims of police tear gassing or harassment included in making the decision on what the consultant was to do? No. 

Do you know where all those people end up politically, those who live in RVs, or on the street, or who organize anti-war and anti-militarism demonstrations (not mention those who abstain from complaining about police harassment out of fear that it could lead to retaliatory harassment)? You know where they end up? On the Public Comment line. They write letters, distribute petitions, call councilmembers, organize meetings, etc. But the closest they will ever get to City Council, where policy is made about these things, is the Public Comment line. They are the ones who know the problems, who are up against survival, who do the research, and who can offer real solutions. But all they get is one minute each on the Public Comment line. 

It’s a form of exclusion. It is not a corruption of democracy that restricts them to one minute of speech. It is an absence of democracy that puts them on that line in the first place. 

Do you remember when black people didn’t have a vote? Once even unenslaved black people didn’t have citizenship (the Dred Scott decision). After the Civil War, the various levels of government broke civil existence into separate parts and wrote different laws for each one. Who made all the decisions that black people were to be denied a vote, or citizenship, or integration. And who make all the decisions that black people would be given the vote, made citizens, and sometimes able to gain admission to educational facilities. White people. Sometimes black people would make speeches, talk about Constitutional logic, and comment on what the white people did. 

The exclusion of those who will be affected by a policy from participation in making that policy is not a detail of US politics. It is the center, the engine of everything that has gone on in this country. 

Berkeley is an educated and liberal city. The population of this town and this area contains people educated at all levels of social existence. Higher education is only one form. Industrial experience and street experience are also forms of knowledge. Those who listen to Public Comment carefully are aware that the majority of speakers on controversial issues not only know what they are talking about, but they constitute a vast outpouring of knowledge, descriptions of problems, narratives of injustice, support for humanitarian approaches to people, proposals for the resolution of problems, etc. Those who come to speak about controversial issues often know a lot more about the issues and its background than the council members. 

Speakers line up to raise issues of policy because they had been excluded from participating in it. When they speak from having been excluded, they are speaking in a critical voice of the way policy is made. They are speaking to become part of the public record. 

It is not because they have small thoughts and make repetitive statements that they suffer time constraints. It is the constraint on time imposed on people with knowledge and experience that has forced their thinking into narrow, repetitive, and sometimes self-serving statements. They make repetitive statements because they have been shoe-horned into that time limit. 

One minute is not enough to formulate complete thoughts. But it is perhaps all council wants to hear, as an extension of a more profound exclusionism. 

 

Public Comment is about imparting knowledge to both council and the public

There is a huge difference between speaking at council and writing a letter to Council or just visiting a councilmember’s office. In letters, one can develop complex arguments, or describe the logic of situations. But what one says in a letter remains in the letter, withdrawn from or even unadmitted to public discourse. To speak in council is to present ideas and narratives to public discourse. When people come in large numbers, they are also there to educate, to bring a mass of experience to the thinking not only of council, but to the people themselves. 

City Council constitutes a center at which people can not only express themselves, and share their knowledge, but also meet and exchange ideas with each other about the issues that city government is addressing. It is not just for the edification of council. They speak to impart their knowledge to all, City Council and the listening public (the audience). It is to create dialogue among the people, as well as with councilmembers – dialogue that should have been at the core of all policy making. To speak in public, and on the public record, gives political existence to people. And that should be recognized. Yet representationism violates that political existence through its focus on procedures. 

When Council addressed the issue of single use plastic utensils, over 70 people lined up to speak their minute, most in support of the measure. The importance of the knowledge they presented was enormous. If those statements had been collected, transcribed, and edited into a coherent document, it would have been a powerful indictment of corporate despoliation of the planet, of society’s use of plastic, and of the plastics industry. They had a lot to add to the knowledge and wisdom of the city, far beyond what City Council had the heart to put together in its ordinance. 

We know that such knowledge exists among the people. Along with the technicians and professors, all have something to add to the way in which this city and this society deal with critical issues. This is a knowledge base that City Council has available. But rather than cultivate it in the interest of social discourse, it gets silenced through procedure. It lurks underneath the time truncations that obstruct how one makes a point. The fact that something is missing at the hands of time constraint is discernible in just about every public comment made. That absence is the sound of silencing. 

We the people are being deprived of this knowledge, and short-changed in our political thinking by the one-minute rule. 

Efficiency must not be made the primary determinant of government operations. 

 

The question of bias

What is implied, by this inversion – that time constraint is not the result of speaker banality, but its cause – is a question of bias. Bias against public speakers. They are disrespected, first of all, in having their time so severely constrained. They are disrespected in councilmembers not listening, just letting people go through the motions of speaking. Council indifference about what the people are bringing to them creates the impression that what is being spoken is without importance and without social critique. It creates an aire of disdain. It says, “you are secondary, you don’t count as much as we do, you are something we simply need to get through as fast as possible in order to look democratic.” 

People who get on the Public Comment line feel that disdain. They feel that sense of inferiority. Though we elected these councilmembers, we are somehow placed in a position of being responsible to them. When we speak, we are seen as just taking up time. That means they wish we would cease because we appear as obstacles to governing. It is like the xenophobe wishing the immigrants would get out of the way and go back where they came from. 

Any pretended interest in what the people bring to that comment line gets falsified on two grounds, first, by the time constraint, and second, by the fact that Public Comment goes first before council says anything about the issue at hand. The public is left at sea about council’s thoughts and feelings, with only the written agenda to go on. 

But the real person who steps up to that microphone is speaking to councilmembers, not to an agenda. As a real person, one speaks in the hopes of speaking to real human beings who can give one a sense of participating in making policy. 

Instead, council wants Public Comment to go first, to get it out of the way. 

That sense of inferiority clouds a person’s thoughts sometimes. One becomes self-conscious. More often it germinates as anger. Yet these speakers are the people of the city, the ones that city politics are all about. They are made to feel like interlopers, taking up council’s valuable time. 

Yet it is council that practices exclusion. And then practices disparagement by reducing speaking time to a segregation divided by signs that say "us" and "them," dialogue spoken here, and only monologue over there for you people. There is a subtle bigotry in it; “how could all those people have anything useful to say.” 

Thus, Council procedure inferiorizes the people who come to participate. 

And what does it really mean that people who will be affected by a policy might be disparaged for thinking they should have had some form of inclusion. How familiar is that? 

##### 

Proposal: Speakers should have 4 minutes each. They don’t have to take the 4 minutes, and someone on the council can warn them when they ramble or repeating themselves. But the 4 minutes would be a serious gesture of faith in the people. 

##### 

The ProDemocracy Project will be talking about this and other proposed changes to council procedure at the Pittman Library (@ MLK and Russell St.), on Thursday, January 30, at 5:30 pm, in the Community Room. All are invited. 

Dear Mr. Burroughs,

I believe the entitlement for 2211 Harold Way will expire this coming Monday, January 20th. In the name of fairness, transparency and precedence I am writing to urge you to NOT grant this project yet another extension. The fourth, if I'm not mistaken - a shocking possibility. The investor has had ample time, four years, to secure funding and move ahead. Our city has been inordinately accommodating, granting three extensions already, behind closed doors and without public process or hearings. The granting of yet another, a fourth, would violate public trust and the goals of our permitting conditions, which were established to make sure projects move forward in a swift, timely fashion. To this end, I believe you stated when granting the prior, third extension:

"August 31, 2018. We are granting your extension request, but the project team will need to move swiftly to demonstrate to the City and the broader community that this third extension will result in a different result and that the project will get built consistent with City approvals."

Well, it's 16 months later. We are counting on you to honor your words. In the letter you stated that "a different result" was expected, that is, the project would move ahead quickly in 2018-2019 and there would be no more requests for an extension. And yet, here we are again. This simply must not stand.

To reiterate, in the name of precedence and fairness, I urge you to refuse any additional exceptions or extensions to this project. We've lost precious time with this investor. Granting yet another exception would amount to favoritism and essentially nullify the results of the democratic process we struggled and fought for in the community. In addition, offering yet another extension would set a very bad precedent for the future of our city, encourage other investors to request special treatment, and detract from our ability to enforce the construction of entitled housing in a timely fashion. I urge you to do the right thing. No more extensions. 

The current developer (i.e., the most recent owner of the development rights) of the 18-story project at 2211 Harold Way may be able to get yet another administrative extension to the planning approval to go forward with this project by January 20. The project was brought before the Landmarks Preservation Commission in December 2019, but the LPC did not take any action because it was incomplete. At that time a newly hired architect presented some cosmetic changes to the building facades that allegedly made it more in keeping with historic buildings in downtown. His presentation was not convincing for many reasons, not least because he failed to show any of the adjacent landmarked buildings in his drawings. But the bigger issues, which were brought up in public comments, had nothing to do with things that the LPC has control over.

It appears that the developer now wants to reduce the number of movie theaters promised at the time of approval from ten to six and to make other changes to the program. Downtown Berkeley is thriving, especially in the evening, with many new restaurants and bars. It was even hopping when I went downtown for dinner with my family right after Christmas when the University was completely closed. This activity certainly benefits from the number of cinema choices in downtown. I don’t know of anywhere else where this synergy is so apparent, except maybe in the Westwood area adjacent to UCLA. Reducing the number of movie theaters by 40% is a significant change that directly affects the benefits that this project was promised to bring to the city. This is sufficient reason to bring this project back for further public review. 

I don’t know whether our elected city council has the power to step in at this point in the administrative process, but if they do, it should be done. At the least the Zoning Adjustments Board should be asked to review the project again, and its Design Review Committee, and possibly the Landmarks Preservation Commission, should weigh in as well. Too much time has passed, too much is at stake, to allow these changes to slip past without a second look. 

 

---

Christopher Adams is a member of the Landmarks Preservation Commission, but these comments represent his personal views, not those of the LPC.  

 

EDITOR'S NOTE: Kelly Hammargren was one of the original organizers of Save the Shattuck Cinemas, and she was one of the unsuccessful plaintiffs in lawsuits challenging the project's Environmental Impact Report. This week she completed her review of more than 800 pages of the public record of the City of Berkeley's dealings with the project backers of 2211 Harold Way, which is attempting to get a fourth renewal of its use permit grant from city staffers in the City of Berkeley Planning Department before Monday, January 20.

---

. If you are having trouble keeping track of what is happening with the project proposed for 2211 Harold Way, here is what seems to be the latest, along with some history for context, information I acquired from making a Public Records Act (PRA) request[1] which resulted in 808 pages of communications between the City of Berkeley and the developer and developer’s representatives/agents.

The December 31, 2019 email from Joe Penner of the HSR financial firm, the current property owner and holder of the use permit which has already been approved, said:

“…The city believed that development projects are a never ending piggy bank."

Was this a ploy to get Timothy Burroughs, Director of the City of Berkeley Department of Planning and Development, to give the Harold Way project developers a fourth extension of time to get their act together? The third extension granted by Timothy Burroughs [link to Burroughs letter] expires on January 20 if the developer doesn’t pay the building permit fees.

Members of the Save Shattuck Cinemas group said all along that Harold Way developer Joseph Penner, founder of Hill Street Realty, /[2] was a speculator who would be selling the project after it was entitled (approved). Lawsuits[3] delayed the for-sale posting, but by December 31, 2016, the announcement was up on the Arbor Realty Capital Advisors website with the drawing of the project listed as 2200-2240 Shattuck Ave, not 2211 Harold Way[4] and the statement “coming soon.” While Arbor has updated its website since 2016, the Harold Way for-sale ad is can still be seen there today.

Even though the Harold Way developers won the 2016 lawsuits, the problems identified by the public through testimony at dozens of meetings and in their hundreds of letters didn’t go away. 

One was water: not the well-known regional drought, not overloading of the sewer system during the rains [link EBMUD letter from DEIR}, not even the sewage backup into Berkeley High School (BHS) buildings and onto school grounds with the agreement of the developer with BHS that the Harold Way project would not use the same sewage line as BHS. None of these were the source of the water problem for the underground garage. 

That was the warning given of the existence of ground water at the site by well-informed residents back in 2015, finally acknowledged in 2019 in the revision of the project plans. An old riverbed runs through the property, and the water table is too high to make a third level of parking feasible. Even with the river culverted under Allston Way, water remains a problem, so the promised third level of underground parking was eliminated. 

Probably no one will cry over losing the 59 spaces in the third underground level of parking. However a huge traffic congestion problem is looming if the project is built. 

A 471-square- foot room for holding package deliveries was added for the residents in the latest project revision[5] with no description or plan for how or where the delivery vehicle will park when dropping off all those packages. 

This package room is in addition to a 333-square-foot mail room. 

Harold Way is a narrow street, only one short block long with the YMCA and Post Office on Allston Way at the north end, the Central Library on Kittredge at the south end, and the Milvia Project Bikeway[6] just one block away to the west. As online shopping grows, the number of deliveries in neighborhoods is skyrocketing, as anyone can tell from the trucks doubled-parked in the street and empty boxes from deliveries stuffed into recycling containers. Now add deliveries for 500-600 new residents, quite possibly more[7], in a confined area one block from Berkeley High with more than 3000 students, taxis to the Shattuck Hotel, rideshare vehicles (Uber, Lyft), pedestrians, bicycles and no plan. 

This block and the surrounding streets have just turned traffic congestion into a nightmare, a nightmare that needs new traffic studies and further California Environmental Quality Act review. 

After weeks and months of only rare email exchanges visible in the 808 pages of PRA request documents, there was a September 3, 2019 letter from Kristina Lawson, attorney for Harold Way. [link to Lawson letter] It included a chart of changes (“minor modifications”) to the plan (though the package room was not in the list) with instruction to Planning Director Timothy Burroughs that the Zoning Officer has the authority to approve such changes from the Use Permit[8], which would serve to keep the developer’s demands out of the eyes of the public. 

It is a slippery slope when the Department of Planning and Development steps in to approve such significant changes from the Use Permit[9] --that makes the Zoning Adjustment Board (ZAB) irrelevant. It sets the stage for developers to call whenever a developer desires to escape from a condition imposed in the Use Permit by ZAB. 

Some members of the public say it has always been this way in Berkeley, with the Planning Department staff undoing in private what was approved before the public. The changes proposed to Planning Director Burroughs in this letter are far down that slippery slope: not just a minor tweak. And even with the contentions by the developer’s attorney, skirting ZAB doesn’t pass muster. 

The plan that developed between COB Planning staff and the developer for Harold Way, as can be seen in the public records, was to usher the revised project through the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) on December 5, 2019 and Design Review Committee (DRC) on December 19, 2019. 

Anne Burns, Secretary for the Design Review Committee (DRC) wrote on October 21, 2019 to developer’s agent Mark Rhoades and Fatema Crane, staff secretary for the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), cc’d to architect Mia Perkins and city planning staffers Steven Buckley and Shannon Allen, 

“Mark: …I’m still working on this review of the October 4^th submittal and had penciled this in for the December 21^st DRC meeting. We would like the best package possible going into our public meetings. This is a very complicated project. That being said, I did hear where you are working on submitting the building permit in December. Final Design Review is not going to hold up your building permit submittal.” 

Interesting! It looks like the developer and Planning staff expected all the changes to slide through, making any potential opposition from the DRC irrelevant. 

The December 5, 2019 LPC presentation did not go as staff planned. Instead it culminated in the unanimous vote by the LPC to continue 2211 Harold Way to a date uncertain and not to forward the project to the DRC. Commission Chair Christopher Adams instructed the Commission Secretary never to bring a project known to be so incomplete to the LPC again. 

Even the absence of LPC approval did not stop the march to complete the building permit submission before the end of December 2019. That was stopped by Joseph Penner. The rush to push the Harold Way project through the LPC and DRC before January 1, 2020 was to apply for the building permit before the year’s end to lock in 2019 building codes. That would presumably avoid more stringent 2020 standards, especially as regards environmental/climate electrification requirements. 

But it is not within the normal scope of the LPC or the Design Review Commission to review building interiors or monitor the significant community benefits which are required by Berkeley’s Downtown Plan for the limited number of extra-tall buildings which could be approved. That responsibility belongs to ZAB. 

ZAB needs to review more in the proposed changes than the added traffic, the loss of community benefits from eliminating four of the promised theaters, the reduction of developer costs through eliminating a floor of underground parking, and the increase in revenue by adding more bedrooms per unit. 

There is also the elimination of 10 floors of a stairwell. In the original design, that stairwell went from the 18^th floor to the ground. Now that stairwell stops on the 13^th floor and is picked up again on the 2^nd floor. Slipping through such changes without ZAB supervision cements them into the plans. 

And cement of a different kind is exactly the worry: that the building’s actual foundation will be laid without review of whether it will support the inclusion of the ten-theater Shattuck Cinemas which was supposed to be a mandated Significant Community Benefit. 

Attached to Kristina Lawson’s September 3^rd letter to Timothy Burroughs is the August 19, 2019 letter of intent from Michael Fant of Landmark Theatres, the current tenant, to formalize discussions with Joseph Penner of entering negotiations for a 20-year lease in the proposed complex. Included is not the promised 641 seats in 10 theaters, but approximately 800 seats in six theaters. [link to Michael fant letter] 

While some of the Commissioners and developer representatives would like the community and decision makers to believe that film is a dying business, Landmark Theatres seems to have upped the number of seats in their theater plans. The PRA material doesn’t indicate whether Landmark’s Shattuck Cinemas requested fewer theaters or they are making the best of the hand they are dealt. Watching film on the big screen for movie patrons is like watching live performance of plays, concerts, the ballet and other arts events. Losing Berkeley’s share of Landmark’s annual 10 million patron business would be a huge blow to the survival of downtown businesses, especially during downtown Berkeley’s present chaos, with multi-unit apartment buildings under construction in what feels like everywhere. 

The Shattuck Cinemas’ annual share of patrons is in hundreds of thousands. Petition signatures indicate that 60% of those patrons travel to Berkeley from the greater Bay Area for the independent and foreign films offered here. It is all of this that drove hundreds of people to attend numerous Harold Way hearings and to write letters that expanded the records in the environmental impact lawsuit to around 10,000 pages. The public insisted that if the Shattuck Cinemas were destroyed for this project they must be rebuilt in full. 

Several of the theaters promised for the original use permit were to be below ground, under the historic Shattuck Hotel. This seemed risky given the underground soil and water situation there. 

David A. Lopez, Architect, Assistant Building Official, Building and Safety Division was reassuring in our conversation. He said when documents come in that don’t match the Use Permit, the developer is given a choice: either build what was approved or go back to the planner and go through the process again. He also said that the Building and Safety Division never accepts that the applicant has properly checked the box of whether or not the project is in a landslide, liquefaction or fault zone as shown on the Environmental Constraints Map: The Division always checks the map. It was another reassuring comment, since the applicant did check “no” to this condition, and according to the Environmental Constraints Map, Harold Way does contain a liquefaction zone. 

As much confidence as David Lopez instilled in the Building and Safety Division’s commitment to safety, they can’t be on site every minute. We know from Library Gardens, where six young people died and seven were injured, that shortcuts by unscrupulous contractors can result in terrible tragedy.[10] Even well-intentioned highly trained people make mistakes with tragic outcomes. 

The Harold Way project is very unusual in that it includes demolition, excavation and construction under a historic property (the hotel guest rooms) that is not owned by the developer. There is the question of just how much construction stress can be absorbed by the Shattuck Hotel before there is damage to the structure, which leads to more questions. If structural damage occurs from construction will the guests and workers in the historic Hotel be safe? Will the companies engaged in the design and construction be adequately insured to pay the Shattuck Hotel damages? One would hope so and certainly the public would hope that the City of Berkeley isn’t seen as deep pockets to augment payouts if damage occurs. The other lingering question: Is it the intent for the disruption to bankrupt the Shattuck Hotel? 

At this point the message is that the Shattuck Hotel will stay open for business during construction. Realistically the volume of the hotel business will depend on the willingness of hotel guests to accept demolition and construction next to and under their hotel room. Pile driving near your hotel bed seems to be a stretch. 

When building fees provide the financial support to the City of Berkeley Planning Department, the pressure to push through projects should never be underestimated. It is obvious that the investor did not do his due diligence. Is it the City’s responsibility to rescue an investor who chose the wrong site to purchase? Just how long should the City propose a flawed project? The request for yet another extension follows a long chain of failures to find a buyer or to sustain investors to rescue the financing. 

There have been recent opinions and quotes in other media about how this must go forward, how difficult it is for this project to cover its costs and how this project should even be relieved of some of the conditions of the project approval. But according to Berkeley’s Downtown Plan, to be permitted to build one of the three buildings allowed to be above the usual 75 foot height limit at 180 feet, the developer must provide significant community benefits of some kind. 

Will this project provide more affordable or even low cost housing? There are no affordable housing units in Harold Way. A developer can remedy this lack by paying a per-unit mitigation fee in lieu of including affordable units. 

It is an interesting coincidence that after the land purchase was announced[11] and eight days before the building application was submitted, the Berkeley City Council reduced this in-lieu mitigation fee [12] by $8000/unit, saving this project $2,416,000. The special conditions spelled out in the ordinance exactly fit the time frame for Harold Way: submission of the application after the passage of the discount and approval of the project before 2016. This locked in the 2013 discounted fees. 

There is a seedy underside to the Harold Way promotions. It goes beyond the faux homeless youth who were dropped off in the morning and picked up in the evening from a large black pickup truck while the protests were going on. These youth with their disheveled appearance filled the sidewalk in front of the Shattuck Cinemas with clutter, blew smoke in patrons’ faces and turned up their boom boxes, all to make going to the Shattuck Cinemas unsettling. Once the City Council dismissed the appeals and approved the Harold Way project these characters vanished. 

In 2015, the Harold Way developer was caught misstating the land cost in the pro forma, the document of projected costs and income used to assess whether the Significant Community Benefits were too burdensome to prevent a reasonable return on investment. [13] Mark Rhoades brushed off the listed inflated cost of $40,000,000, saying they were just listing the land cost as what was expected to be the land value after construction. A revised pro forma was never required. It did become the subject of one of the appeals. 

There is construction of multi-unit housing going up all across the downtown and along the San Pablo corridor. The bulldozers are clearing the way for the project at Durant and Shattuck as this is being written. Berkeley is in a housing building boom that can be seen by walking through the downtown and along San Pablo Avenue. 

There has been enormous energy poured into trying to rescue the Harold Way project. Letting go of it would open the door for another developer to submit a proposal for a site that isn’t so problematic. It wasn’t just Save Shattuck Cinemas members who questioned why a project proposal for the most contentious block in Berkeley was being pushed so hard. It was also brought up from the dais at City Council that there should be competition for the selection of the limited number of tall buildings to be approved. 

It certainly is time for businesses to return to the building with the security of not being threatened with eviction, for hotel guests to bask in the luxury of sleeping in, for restaurants to feel more secure in weathering current downtown construction knowing that the Shattuck Cinemas will be in continuous operation all through it, and for the rest of us to watch documentary and independent films on the big screen in the beautiful Shattuck Cinemas theatres. 

There is more that could be said, but enough for one sitting. 

 

 

They say we live in a post-facts world. In a post-facts world, ideology trumps scientific evidence or credible statistical data. The only thing worse are the politicians who knowingly feed this ignorance for financial gain and political power.

Most will assume that I’m referring to politics in Washington DC. But as significant as their sins against truth may be, Senators Scott Wiener, Nancy Skinner, and Mike McGuire, the co-authors of Senate Bill 50, are giving them a run for the money.

To paraphrase Rose McGowan, if b.s. was music, they’d be a brass band.

At the rollout press conference of the new and “improved” SB 50, which comes up for a vote in Sacramento on January 26^th, Senators Wiener and Skinner were on hand to promote their vision of urbanism for everyone and the elimination of single-family zoning in the state of California.

The theory behind SB 50 is that if we remove all zoning and legislative impediments to development, the “market” will solve all of our state’s housing problems. This approach, they claim, will lead to more affordable housing, even though SB 50 contains no provisions whatsoever to require affordability.

Ronald Reagan and Arthur Laffer[1] would be proud.[2]

Weiner and Skinner’s dog and pony show was drowned out by an Oakland homeless group, Moms 4 Housing. The “Moms” were protesting the inevitable collateral damage from SB 50, which includes higher rents, gentrification, and the displacement of people of color.

Senator Wiener’s response was to say,

“Frankly, I don’t care how much money developers are making. That’s not my concern. I just want more housing.” 

Meanwhile, playing the role of the Greek Chorus, Senator McGuire gushed to the the Marin IJ in their article on the protest, 

"We have always believed that if a housing bill ends up on the governor’s desk the governor will sign it.” 

The Moms are a very small group that is currently squatting, illegally, in an abandoned house. This makes it easy to dismiss their opinions. But if you actually listened to what they had to say, it’s far more astute than anything Wiener or Skinner were selling. 

The Moms called SB 50 just another version of 1980s “urban renewal,” which displaced entire poor neighborhoods in its heyday. But they are not alone in warning about SB 50. Zoning and planning experts around the country are also raising red flags about the unintended consequences of these drastic laws. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors have voted to oppose SB 50. 

The great irony in all this is that those most in need of affordable housing are the ones most opposed to SB 50. Throughout the state, activists in low-income neighborhoods of color vehemently oppose SB 50 and other new laws that remove zoning power from locally elected government and their community. 

One of those is the Crenshaw Subway Coalition, a powerful community organization in Los Angeles. In an announcement for a recent meeting about rampant gentrification, Damien Goodmon, the group’s executive director wrote, 

“We are at war. Our historic Black working class community is under attack from gentrification, speculators and developers who want to profit off the community we built. It is long past the time for black politicians to ‘get right’ or get to packing! Our community has a decision to make: Rise up! ...or we might as well pack up.” 

Goodmon’s charges are nothing new. What he’s correctly describing has been going on for decades, as luxury housing, high-end retail chains, and commercial development has plowed through low-income neighborhoods everywhere in the country. If anyone has the right to allege racism, it would be Goodmon, yet that’s not his argument. His argument is about equity, equal opportunity, and local control. 

Los Angeles City Council President Herb Wesson, community advocate Romerol Malveaux, and Coalition for Economic Survival's Larry Gross hold similar views. At a recent town hall meeting, which included representatives from the South Carthay Neighborhood Association, the Cherrywood Leimert Block Club, the P.I.C.O. Neighborhood Council, the Coalition for Economic Survival,[3] and others, Herb Wesson noted, 

“If SB 50 were to pass, sixty percent of the 10th district that I represent would be impacted. In Mr. Koretz’s district abutting mine, 45 percent of properties would be impacted. SB 50 would change the face of mid-city Los Angeles.” 

Romerol Malveaux added, 

“When we talk about single-family neighborhoods, we’re not even talking about housing. It’s more, sometimes, than just a place to sleep or eat. It’s also part of a neighborhood, the whole neighborhood. This is your safety net. These are the people that will help you when the earthquake comes. These are the people that might help because they’re next door. You know them, and they know you.” 

Malveaux went on to wax poetic in describing the values of single-family home ownership in his predominately lower income community. 

“The other element about single-family places is the environment. The trees. The sidewalks. The ability to just walk. It’s aspirational. It’s the goal that you work towards. When I was growing up, you knew you were an adult when you were able to get your own home. 

“Today, many young people move back home. Sometimes it's so they can save up to make a down payment on their own home. They want it. It’s as American as apple pie. Our neighborhoods are like our collective soul. There’s a sense of place about the architecture. You know when you move from one to another because you go from Victorian homes to Craftsman homes to the tile roof homes, and you see the beauty of all of it. 

“But then the question becomes “who gets to live in single-family neighborhoods?” and “how much money do you have to have to live in single-family neighborhoods?” Many of us are fortunate enough that our neighborhoods are our legacy to our children. So when I see something like SB 50, I get real concerned about whether it’s actually pulling my soul out. I wonder what my children will inherit.”[4] 

Comments made by these men leave no doubt that single-family homed are a beloved and prized institution and considered a universal good by people of all races, creeds, and income levels. At this meeting, 90% of the audience attending raised their hands when asked if they opposed SB 50. 

In light of all this, what is so bizarre about the “through-the-looking-glass” logic behind SB 50 is that super-progressive, political grifters like Senators Wiener, Skinner, and McGuire are the ones race-baiting to shove their ideologies down the throats of Californians, rich and poor. 

According to Senators Wiener, Skinner, and McGuire, if you own or want to buy a single-family home you are a racist. Period. 

There is not a shred of evidence whatsoever that their allegation is true, yet this trio is working tirelessly to drown out and defame any opposition, by accusing their critics of the very thing they are doing. 

I’ll tell you what is racist. It’s a group of entitled, super liberal, white people lecturing poor, disenfranchised communities of color about what is and is not racist, and what is “good for them.” 

The single-family zoning myth 

At the roll-out event in Oakland, Senator Nancy Skinner, who represents Berkeley and Oakland, said, 

“The majority of land use in all of the areas where there are jobs and transit are zoned single-family. That’s exclusionary zoning. If you think about the history of single-family zoning, it was designed to exclude poor people, to exclude people of color, to exclude whatever class or race of people that that community didn’t want.” 

She goes on then to rant that 

“75% of the LA basin is zoned single-family. That is racist, that is exclusionary, and that serves, now with the cost of housing. It serves only the super-rich.” 

These allegations are so misinformed that it’s hard to even unpack them. The depth of the falsehoods contained in her statements would make President Trump blush. 

Whether Ms. Skinner is saying this for political gain or she’s just that stupid is hard to discern, but, either way, it is total nonsense. And that Senator Wiener and Marin County’s own Senator Mike McGuire completely agree with her is… I don’t know what the proper word is… scary? 

First of all, all the places in the U.S. that have the greatest concentration of jobs and public transportation are urban downtowns and they are all zoned commercial, retail, and multifamily. That is an incontestable fact. 

Secondly, a large percentage of the LA basin and the Valley are zoned for duplexes, triplexes, and other multifamily. 

Third, zoning has always preceded jobs and transit in our nation’s history.[5] Single-family zoned suburbs and rural areas in our country have always been the last to get any public transportation or see the development of jobs centers. A six year-old could show you that on a map. 

But these senators' claim that single-family zoning was “designed” to be discriminatory is a flat out lie. 

The single-family home is arguably the oldest form of housing in the world. It's been with us since the mud hut and the teepee. The second oldest form of single-family housing would probably be the condominium, where homes are packed together for a variety of reasons, but mostly for economies of scale and security. The towns of Medieval Europe, the hillside towns of the Mediterranean, and the Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde are examples of this. Multifamily housing, on the other hand, dating back to the Egyptians, Romans, plantation owners, and tenement slumlords, was often built to provide housing for indentured workers, immigrints, and slaves. 

But in modern times, the fundamental things that have differentiated who owns or rents single-family versus multi-family housing has been wealth and social, economic, and personal rights and freedoms. No one tells Oprah Winfrey, Robert F. Smith, or Steph Curry where they can and can't live. 

A brief history of zoning 

The concept of using zoning as a planning tool has been with us since ancient times. Zoning worldwide has been used to separate types of uses (residential versus manufacturing) and also to segregate people based on occupation, societal position, race, religious beliefs, and so on. It has been said that Nero let Rome burn because he wanted to get rid of the local riff raff and make way for urban renewal. 

However, the history of zoning laws in the United States have been quite different. Although it has certainly been abused for various purposes, since its inception at the turn of the last century, zoning as a planning tool was not primarily implemented to enforce social inequality. 

The first zoning laws in the U.S. were approved in Los Angeles, in 1908, and New York City, in 1916. The primary purpose of these ordinances were about different types of land uses.[6] They were considered “nuisance” ordinances required to separate residential uses from industrial and manufacturing uses. They had nothing to do with who lived where. That was generally a matter of wealth and privilege. 

It’s also important to keep in mind that historically most of the land in our country has always been used for single-family housing, reflecting our rural roots as a nation. Urban living is a relatively new historical phenomenon. 

Prior to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation based on race, color, religious beliefs, and a host of other reasons was commonplace throughout the country. Restrictions of all kinds impacted who was hired, who could use public facilities, who received public and private education opportunities, housing rental, and who could join the local country club. 

With respect to housing and rental laws, prior to 1964, segregation certainly existed but it was generally irrespective of the type of home one could buy or rent. Segregation and similar prohibitions applied to any type of housing (single-family, multi-family, etc.) and all types of jobs, places, and opportunities. 

In other words discrimination did not discriminate between what kind of home someone wanted to live in, only who wanted to live there. 

To claim that single-family home zoning, itself, somehow holds a special place in the historic pantheon of discrimination is pure nonsense. Even today, if you get out of the West Coast bubble and travel around the country, this is pretty obvious. There are vast areas zoned for single-family homes that are predominately owned and rented by poorer and more disadvantaged people of all races and creeds. 

Wanting to own a home with a yard your kids can play in is not a racial thing. Single-family living has always been and remains, as Mr. Malveaux said, above, as American as apple pie, and it is the major pillar of what we think of as the “American Dream.” 

That Senators Wiener, Skinner, and McGuire don’t know this and don’t respect this is unforgivable. 

What then is the current relationship between race and housing? 

Correlation does not imply causation 

This is the fundamental mantra of statistical analysis. It means that just because two things correlate (appear related) does not necessarily mean that one causes the other. Correlations between different things can be caused by other factors that affects both of them. 

Every high school student knows this. Yet, Senators Wiener, Skinner, and McGuire do not. They are content to profit off of promoting an emotional, dumbed-down worldview. 

Where I grew up, in the boroughs of New York City, in the 1950s, there were Jewish, Black, Italian, Irish, White Anglo-Saxon, and Puerto Rican neighborhoods that were all separate. This was due to racist homeowner association laws, or realtors and banks steering different groups to different areas, or because prices made those decisions for the buyers/renters, or frankly, because ethnic and racial groups, particularly immigrants, preferred living in neighborhoods where people that shared their culture. But the neighborhoods were all zoned single-family or multifamily, regardless of who lived there. And over the years, the race, color, and ethnicity of the residents in each neighborhood rotated based on upward or downward economic mobility. 

That some people enjoyed socioeconomic opportunities that others didn’t might have been based on racism, xenophobia, lack of education, language barriers, or other factors. But what type of home they lived in was based on how much money they had, not the zoning. This is just as true today as it was then. 

Many longstanding disadvantaged communities across the country have traditionally been comprised of single-family homes (go visit Florida, West Virginia, and Mississippi), but in urban areas a greater percentage of disadvantaged populations live in multifamily housing. This is not because single-family zoning is racist, because these populations have been denied equal opportunity to education, jobs, and economic opportunity and so have less financial power. It is also important to note that in urban areas, a greater percentage of people of all races, colors, and creeds live in multifamily housing. 

So, based on the reasoning of Senators Wiener, Skinner, and McGuire, that correlation is causation, it would actually be more logical to conclude that multifamily zoning is racist, because that’s where disadvantaged people are being forced to live. 

That racism results in economic inequality does not mean that single-family homes (and other benefits of wealth and opportunity) are inherently racist. Single-family zoning is no more racist than any other kind of zoning, nor any more racist than public rest rooms and drinking fountains were inherently racist in the south in 50s. It was segregation that was at fault not the drinking fountain, itself, or its inventor. 

Correlation is not causation. 

Why not just address racism head-on? The answer to that is because this is not about racism at all. It's about the financialization and corporatization of residential real estate. 

Why isn’t affordability addressed in all the new housing laws? 

SB50 makes no provisions for affordable housing. In the San Francisco Bay Area, this will equate to more high-end housing for highly paid tech workers. The three senators say they just want more housing of all types. But they never get around to explaining how these “all types” actually get built. If just getting rid of zoning laws produced affordable housing, it would have already happened in markets around the country. 

All you have to do is go to Houston, which has no zoning laws at all, to see how well that’s working to provide affordable housing. It’s not. 

The senator’s beliefs would be laughable if the outcomes were not so onerous. There are an endless number of people of all races, creeds, and colors -- African American, Asian, Latino, Indian, and yes, middle class white people -- who own and improve their single-family homes or who are right now working long hours to fulfill their dream of owning one, while Wiener, Skinner, and McGuire are accusing them all of being racists. 

Shame on them and anyone who supports them. 

Single-family zoning has never been a proponent of racism, even if racism has allowed single-family home ownership to skew to the benefit of the wealthy or particular races. Single-family zoned areas in the U.S. are prized by people of all races. 

The senators' attempts to conflate zoning with a lack of racial diversity flies in the face the fact that who gets to live where reflects the lack of diversity of financial means more than anything else, but that doesn’t make single-family zoning the cause. 

Meanwhile, Californians need to wake up and rise up soon, because Sacramento is gutting the goose that laid the golden egg in the Golden State. 

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Laffer 

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics 

[3] https://www.2preservela.org/huge-south-los-angeles-town-hall-opposes-sb-50/ 

[4] https://www.planningreport.com/2019/05/27/south-los-angeles-forum-opposes-sb-50 

[5] We built the Transcontinental Railroad to connect existing urban centers, not single-family neighborhoods. 

[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoning_in_the_United_States 

 

Bob Silvestri is a Mill Valley resident and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization funded only by individuals in Marin and the San Francisco Bay Area. Please consider DONATING TO CVP to enable us to continue to work on behalf of Marin residents.

Even many critics of the federal government assume that the Department of Labor’s (DOL) reports on employment related issues is honest and accurate. But actually, neither is true. In fact, what the DOL often claims is good news is really bad news. According to the DOL the economy is producing more jobs, which accounts for the low unemployment rate. The assumption is that the more jobs, the better. However, “It ain’t necessarily so". In fact, it can make things worse.  

What too many employers have been doing to increase their profits is converting full time jobs into part-time positions. For each job that is converted there are then two jobs instead of one. This inflates the number of new jobs that are officially reported, which looks good for the administration.  

The catch is that employers are paying many part-timers less money but not only because they work fewer hours. Part-timers typically earn less per hour than full-time workers. And most do not receive health insurance as well as other fringe benefits. Business benefits and workers, many of whom are former full-timers, lose.  

But even creating part-time jobs doesn’t satisfy many employers. Businesses have been shifting their work to the rapidly growing number of independent contractors who are self-employed. Instead of getting steady work they have to hustle different firms for short term assignments. There can be long stretches when they cannot obtain any work. As a result, they are perpetually insecure and many earn annually only a poverty wage.  

Yet since they are in their own business the DOL counts these workers as employed even when their search for short term contracts is unsuccessful. (But California recently enacted a law, AB-5, that requires employers to define and treat independent contractors as employees. A hopeful sign)  

When jobs are very difficult to find, many workers become too discouraged to continue searching. If they have not actively searched for work in the last four weeks, they are no longer counted as unemployed. Yet according to an official study, over 4.5 million of these workers report that they want to work. Therefore these discouraged workers should be counted as unemployed and there should be an upward adjustment of the unemployment rate.  

Also, they are not counted as unemployed if they only looked at ads because it is classified as a passive search. But the only reason that many of them do not take further steps is because some listings were by firms they already had already contacted or they did not see anything they could apply for. The DOL’S real motive for not counting these workers as unemployed is its habit of underestimating the unemployment rate on behalf of the establishment.  

Among the most exploited workers are the disabled. Although the DOL claims it is committed to helping the disabled to improve their wages, the reality is exactly the opposite. A 1938 provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act permits employers to apply to the DOL for the right to pay a subminimum wage. The Department has been very generous in granting waivers. Many employers are now paying disabled employees just one dollar an hour and even less.  

p.s. Could it be worse? Yes indeed. According to the organization Dream Corps, which is concerned about prison conditions, over 42,000 prisoners work full-time as electricians, carpenters, cooks and other skilled occupations in California. Also, substantial numbers of prisoners are assigned to work in the dangerous jobs as fire fighters. The wages that prisoners receive is as little as 8 cents per hour. Their forced labor at incredibly low wages is tantamount to slave labor. h

If mentally ill, many doors that most people take for granted as available are shut in our faces. Other than incarceration, which has taken on the role of de facto state mental health option, there are milder forms of unhappy restrictions to which mentally ill people are subject. 

The invisible walls of mental illness consist partly of having less liberty than someone without mental illness. For example, few people with psychiatric problems are able to obtain and/or maintain professional employment. Yet, there are some who have moved past that barrier. And most must remain closeted concerning their disability. 

Some people with mental illness do not have college, because the onset of their condition happened before or during their college years. This, by itself, is a substantial roadblock. Those who do in fact have college may have had to fight off symptoms while getting their academic work done. For this, they should get a medal of fortitude. 

Most potential employers will not hire someone openly mentally ill, unless the job is bottom of the barrel and without any significant responsibility. Some will not hire a mentally ill person whatsoever for anything. However, a psychiatric diagnosis doesn't necessarily show up on a background check, and it is often worth it not to volunteer this information. 

Those of us who currently can't show up for a job consistently, including me, are forced to live on the tiny amounts provided by Disability Insurance and SSI. This is a big restriction. Financial restrictions comprise one many of the invisible walls of mental illness. 

People with significant mental illness are often pressured into participating in outpatient institutionalization. This could include one's housing situation, and it could include being forced into a day treatment program. These activities, to me, are depressing. I've gone to many outpatient programs. Some of them do not render the level of hope that you would get if you are in the workforce. (However, such programs are worth doing for many people. They are a better alternative than not having structure, and as a result, relapsing.) 

What I've talked about so far are the socioeconomic walls that we face. To continue in the strictly social vein, most people do not have the same regard for mentally ill people compared to someone they perceive as normal. If you are a man seeking a relationship, you may find that most prospective mates will not go out with you, especially if your disability prevents full-time work. If you are a woman with mental illness, you will have better luck attracting someone, yet you might not get the same level of respect compared to someone without a psychiatric condition. 

In a social situation, such as a party or potluck, a mentally ill person may be somewhat lost. This is partly because of the illness and the medication, and it is not so much because people hold you with a lack of regard. Also, if you are not used to socializing among non-afflicted people, your ability to make conversation and interact could be underdeveloped. 

Imagine being at a party or potluck and someone asking, "What do you do?" A typical question to start conversation, sometimes phrased differently than that. One's response might be, "Well, I take medication and I sit in front of a television." 

Or, in my case, I could say "I'm a freelance author." I very well might not be believed. This is especially so if someone has already identified me as the mentally ill person at the party. In that case, anything I say will not be taken seriously. 

Many people who know me as a mental health consumer presume that is all I am. The concept that I might have a life outside of that is foreign. Even where I go for mental health treatment, staff members do not believe my writing career amounts to anything. If I shove my portfolio in their faces, it doesn’t stop the condescension, and I might be regarded as an "idiot savant," or as "the patient with an unusual talent." And I will still not get much respect.  

The social and societal walls that I face in large part consist of people's fixed perceptions. 

The walls that surround people with mental illness exist in the minds of others and in the mind of oneself. If we believe we can't do anything, it is an additional wall, one that we have internalized. 

Should we give up, then, on scaling these walls? No. Any minority in the history of the U.S. has had barriers to face. At one time, African American people were presumed mentally inferior. At one time, women were presumed mentally inferior. If mentally ill people are to be treated as equals, we have to assert ourselves. 

*** 

On my professional Facebook page, you can see interviews, you can see some of my work showcased, and you can see some other useful links:  

 

https://www.facebook.com/writingofjackbragen/ 

Striking a Political Pose 

Elizabeth Warren's feisty stage persona is in line with mainstream American politicking. In the USA, the accepted wisdom holds that it's not enough to have great policies and progressive goals to pursue a seat in the Oval Office. If you want to raise campaign bucks, you've got to raise a fist, raise your voice, raise the stakes, and raise a ruckus. 

Hence, Warren's two-fisted campaign slogan: "Dream Big, Fight Hard, Win." 

This is a slogan that sounds like it could have been lifted straight off a Pentagon recruiting poster. 

At least "Dream Big, Fight Hard, Win" is better than Donald Trump's slogan: "Hallucinate, Punch Dirty, Gloat." 

WHO's Missing 

The Whole Foods outlet on Gilman Street recently suffered a partial electrical failure. The outage changed the glowing signage on the front of the story to read: "LE FOODS," which sounds like a perfect name for a place where you might spend your chèque de paie entier. 

When US Missiles Shot Down an Iranian Passenger Jet 

Iran has been thrown into turmoil last after the discovery that government missiles shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 passengers on board. But this was not the first time a military mistake cost civilian lives in the sky over Iran. 

On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes, sailing in waters off Iran, mistook an Iranian passenger plane for an enemy fighter jet and shot the Airbus A300 out of the sky, killing all 290 civilians (including 66 children). Iran raised an international protest, pointing out that the plane was inside Iran airspace at the time. The US ultimately paid millions of dollars in compensation to the families of the victims but the US never apologized. Instead, the Pentagon awarded medals to the captain and crew of the Vincennes "for exceptionally meritorious conduct." 

Trump's Pattern of Projection 

"Psychological projection" is a term for a "subconscious defense mechanism" that involves individuals projecting their own "undesirable feelings or emotions onto someone else." 

Donald Trump provides such a classic case that Psychology Today has labeled his "The Projector-in-Chief." Trump complains endlessly about hoaxes and fake news while giving lip to more than 15,000 certified lies since setting foot (and mouth) in the Oval Office. 

As Psychology Today gives some examples: 

The cut-throat businessman who believes that everyone is trying to cheat him is found guilty of illegal business practices. A religious leader becomes famous preaching about the immorality of homosexuality, only to be found cavorting with male prostitutes. A prosecutor builds a career convincing juries to send sexual abusers to jail—until we discover that he is sexually abusive himself. 

And this is why the following video clip is so disturbing: 

 

Only One Presidential Candidate Voted Against the Pentagon's Billion-dollar Budget 

Bernie Sanders claims he is "the only candidate in the Democratic primary to have voted against all of Trump's defense budgets" but, as Politifact pointed out shortly after the critical December ballot on Trump's $738 billion gift to the Pentagon, Sanders actually "missed this week’s vote." Democratic presidential hopefuls Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) all also missed the critical vote—electing to campaign instead. (While Warren voted against last year’s military budget, she actually supported Trump’s first national defense authorization request.) 

Only eight senators—evenly split between four Democrats and four Republicans—voted against Trump's 2020 Pentagon budget. These heroes included Mike Braun (R-IN), Michael B. Enzi (R-WY), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Mike Lee (R-UT), Edward Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Rand Paul (R-KY), and Ron Wyden (D-OR). 

The only Democratic presidential candidate who has voted against all three of Trump’s defense authorization bills is Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). 

Gabbard—a military combat vet who suspended her campaign for two weeks to serve overseas with the Army National Guard—was one of 48 House members to vote against the current massive spending proposal. Gabbard also cast no votes on Trump’s previous military budgets in 2018 and 2017. Demonstrating remarkable consistency, Gabbard also voted against President Obama’s 2016 defense budget. 

When it comes to opposing the Pentagon's massive confiscation of taxpayer dollars, the House showed more courage than the Senate. In the House, 41 Democrats, 6 Republicans, and 1 Independent voted no on Trump's multi-billion-dollar military budget. 

A Decadent Start to Our New Decade Dance 

The Earthweek website got the decade off to a less-than-jolly start with a bucket-full of bad environmental alerts, including the following: 

• Oceanic heat waves have tripled in recent years and are disrupting the marine ecosystems that support life in the oceans and on land. 

• A 5,500-mile-long patch of Sargassum seaweed now crosses the entire Atlantic from Africa to the Yucutan Peninsula. 

• More that 11,000 world scientists warn of "untold human suffering" without dramatic reductions in greenhouse gases as climate collapse increases faster than previously predicted. What's needed? Immediately cutting carbon emissions by 7.6% each year until 2030. 

• More than a billion animals died in Australia's unprecedented wildfires. With the Amazon forests also going up in flames, the spreading global devastation has giving rise to a new term for this flamboyant era: The Pyrocene. 

• Magnetic north is shifting position and is reportedly "racing toward Siberia from the Canadian Arctic." 

• The Trump administration continues taking steps to exclude the impacts of climate change from federal planning and is taking additional steps to increase mining, drilling, and the construction of oil pipelines. 

• Meanwhile, the backlog toxic Superfund sites continues to grow as Trump cuts funds for cleanups. 

Is there any positive news to report as we embark on 2020? The best Earthweek could come up with was the following: 

• A company called Eco Plastico Ambiental has plans to remove plastic wastes from the world's oceans and to use the long-lasting trash "to make homes from plastic garbage." 

Mad Ad: Rogue Scientists Target US Cities with 5G 

What was T-Mobile thinking when it approved the script for its new video ad promoting 5G wireless? 

The result borders on self-parody. Worse, it borders on madness. 

The scene takes place inside what resembles an underground missile silo. Two white-coated technicians (who appear to be totally unsupervised rogue actors) play with glowing control panels before engaging in a launch protocol that involves simultaneously turning two keys in separate locks (just like the Pentagon's nuclear missile operators are trained to do). 

They are transfixed by the sight of the console's largest button, sitting smack center and all aglow. It's labeled "T-Mobile 5G." 

They begin an ominous countdown—"T minus three, two, one"—and push the button, unleashing a hellish tide of red beams that fan out over the dark countryside and head straight for an unsuspecting city in the distance. Before you know it, the entire city is glowing as brightly as a barrel of charcoal briquettes. 

The two cyber-nerds celebrate this unannounced assault with high-fives. "And we're just getting started" one whoops while the other replies ominously: "Wait until they see what's next." (It's clear that "they" haven't been consulted about any of this. Instead, there's an unquestioned presumption that the newly irradiated guinea pigs will be delighted by whatever these two T-Mobilizers throw at them.) 

The ad appears to end but it turns out there's a closing coda. One with a very high "creep factor." 

In the darkness you can hear the faint footsteps of someone sneaking back into the command center. One of the twisted techies pads up to the main console, hovers over the glowing 5G Button, places his hand over it lovingly and strokes it while whispering cryptically: "Soon, my friend. Very soon." 

I'm sure T-Mobile will say the whole episode was intended as an innocent spoof but what it reveals is a heedless sense of entitlement with no respect for others and no sense of moral responsibility. 

See what you think: 

 

First a Sermon, Then a March 

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of delivering my first sermon, thanks to the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. "The topic: The Internet of Things and the 5G Zapocalypse." 

The event involved weeks of preparation, collaborating with a talented crew of BFUU volunteers who worked on and the music, the sermon, and supporting commentary. The service included a long, amusing poem about electromagnetic radiation and a song performed on a theremin — an electronic device that is "played" by waving your hands above it! 

After a 30-minute Q&A (including comments by several EMF-sensitive members of the audience), we "took the show on the road," picking up a dozen protest signs and marching through the neighborhood where evidence of the approaching 5G "roll-out" were already apparent. 

There was a 5G installation warning sign on a power pole adjacent to the BFUU building on Center Street. There was another cluster of signs across the street, describing plans to install transmitters on the roof of the Lawrence Moore Manor, a four-floor housing complex. 

As we walked down Sacramento Street, a woman saw our signs and bolted into her front yard to greet us. It turned out that she and her neighbor (who also showed up and chatted/strategized for 15 minutes) had successfully defeated plans to install a massive wi-fi system atop a large multi-floor apartment complex on the block. (The proposed antenna would have overlooked a children's playground on the BFUU's property). 

The residents told us that the proposed installation would have included a 6,000-pound antenna array and a "backup generator" in case of a power failure. The back-up generator—also on the roof—would have been powered by kerosene! It took the local residents months of meetings to block the project. Praise be! 

Celebrating Iran's First Lady of Math 

A Bay Area filmmaker George Paul Csicsery has released a remarkable new documentary. Secrets of the Surface: The Mathematical Vision of Maryam Mirzakhani examines the life and trail-blazing mathematical accomplishments of Maryam Mirzakhani, an Iranian immigrant to the United States who became a superstar in her field. In 2014 Mirzakhani became the first woman—and the first Iranian—to be awarded a math-master's highest prize, the Fields Medal.
Secrets of the Surface had its world premiere on January 17, in Colorado, at an event sponsored by the Joint Mathematics Meetings and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI). The screening was followed by a panel discussion with a half-dozen of Mirzakhani's friends and colleagues who spoke fondly of the precocious number-cruncher, who died in 2017 at the age of thirty. 

In this 59-minute Zala Films/MSRI tribute, Mirzakhani’s contributions are explored by leading academics and illustrated by animated sequences. Her colleagues from around the world, as well as former teachers, classmates—and students in Iran today—praise the lasting impact of her achievements. Her success on Iran’s Math Olympiad team and her brilliant career overall, make Mirzakhani an ideal role model for girls considering careers in science and mathematics. 

Filmed in Canada, Iran, and the US, the DVD of Csicsery's latest film is now available at www.secretsofthesurface.com. Here's a trailer. 

A Different Look at the "Housing Crisis" 

KCBS radio provides a useful factoid for understanding the Bay Area's "housing crisis." 

On January 6, a report by Matt Bigler noted that, while there are "just over 4,000" homeless people in Oakland, the city also lays claim to "just under 6,000 vacant homes." 

The Mercury News provides another metric: There are estimated to be around 23,000 homeless people living in Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma, and Contra Costa counties. At the same time, "as many as 46,000 homes in five Bay Area counties are empty." 

Call it What It Is 

KCBS recently broadcast the worrisome news that "natural disasters" (in the form of unprecedented wildfires, hurricanes, tornados, and drought) have increased by "more than 160 percent" over recent years. And what accounts for these apocalyptic events? 

According to the KCBS report, the culprit was "our changing seasons." 

And what accounts for our seasonal changes, pray tell? Can't we just say "climate change"? (Or, to be more Eco-PC: "Climate Catastrophe.") 

Unsporting Behavior 

The sporting world was rocked recently by the crackdown on the Houston Astros who were accused of stealing signals and alerting its batters to upcoming pitches by banging out codes on a trashcan. This remarkably innovative strategy netted the Astros two top-tier firings and a $5 million fine. 

But is there another scandal waiting to roil the sport of football? The SF 49ers recently managed to advance to a NRC playoff by defeating the Minnesota Vikings in a 27-10 hometown win. But was the win rigged? 

Local sportscasters ran clips of the Viking quarterback clamping his hands over his ears to drown out the noise from the Niners' cheering fans. Did the hometown crowd realize that, if they made enough noise, the Vikings wouldn't be able to hear the quarterback's calls to snap the ball? 

The question that arises: How do you fine, shame, or penalize 65,000 rabid sports fans? 

(Recorded 1/11/2020) 

Jack: We're two old poet fellows and we've known each other for a very long time. It's such a pleasure to be just chatting with John. We met when I published my first book, in 1987, a long time ago. There were three other people who were publishing at the same time and I thought I was running with the highest here. Mary Rudge, who is a wonderful poet from Alameda; H.D. Moe, who has been called a one-man experimental movement; and John Curl who, even then, was very deeply an activist poet. So I was among these high-class people. I was really delighted to be published with them. We did a few readings together with other poets but this is our first time in which just John and I are going to be reading. 

John: It's amazing that we've continued this connection, this relationship over these years. We worked with Mary Rudge’s poetry TV show at Alameda cable for a long time, and we worked together in PEN Oakland. 

Jack: Yes. Absolutely. We're going to be doing a reading at Bird & Beckett Books on the 30th of January. I think it will be a very interesting reading because we both have new books. 

John: Your book of poems, When Sleep Comes, Shillelagh Songs, and my novel, The Outlaws of Maroon. 

Jack: Neither of us has had a chance to read the other's book yet, but we’re familiar with each other's work over 30 years because we've been on and off running into each other, seeing each other's work, talking about poetry, arguing about things. You know, friends for 30 years and I think that's quite amazing. But tell me a little bit about The Outlaws of Maroon. What’s the story about? Without giving it all away, you know. 

John: It's set in the early 1950s, the early McCarthy era, in New York City. It’s about a group of kids rebelling in a public school. Fourth-graders. It's about the world of children and the adult world in conflict, in an atmosphere of political repression and attacks on freedom of thought. The kids find a forgotten room in the foundations of a building, and struggle to build their own world there and live their dreams, while the Cold War is enveloping their school. 

Jack: Kind of a great cover incidentally, the bridge and those children. Is that the Brooklyn Bridge? 

John: No, that's the George Washington Bridge, upper Manhattan. I grew up there, in the early McCarthy era. The Outlaws of Maroon is based on the world of my childhood and the school that I went to. The anti-communist witch hunts were affecting the whole community and affecting my school, and certainly affecting my family, since my grandfather was a union guy and the union he worked in was a communist union. 

Jack: [Chuckles] You had it there, yes, wow! 

John: I found out later that many people in my neighborhood were leftists also. It was a very progressive neighborhood. I also found out later that many public school teachers had been fired during the witch hunt, which I knew instinctively but I never really read in the newspaper. 

Jack: Just out of curiosity, was your neighborhood diverse or was it largely Jewish? 

John: It was mainly Jewish and Irish, except that the Irish kids went to a different school. 

Jack: Of course. 

John: So we met in the street. The streets were more diverse than the schools were. 

Jack: There's an Ira Gershwin lyric, “Loves the Irish, loves the Jews.” That connection has been going on for many and many a year. Also, the connection of course between the Jews and African-Americans as well. But I wondered because I've always felt that there was at least an overtone in McCarthyism of anti-semitism. More than a little. 

John: Of course, you've got the Rosenbergs. 

Jack: Exactly. 

John: That didn't go over very big in my neighborhood. People were very frightened. So the setting is the McCarthy era, the anti-subversives witch hunt. I hate to use that word witch hunt, because of the way it’s being used today. 

Jack: That’s the way it was. 

John: It affected the schools. There was a chill going on in the schools. The first hundred pages of the book is like a kid's book. It's all from the kids' point of view. But it’s not a kids’ book. Later on, it gets more into the adults’ point of view. The mechanism is kids eavesdropping on the adult world and trying to figure it out, and trying to create their own world in response to it. 

Jack: Is that the Maroon world? I mean, The Outlaws of Maroon sounds like a science fiction title. 

John: Maroon is a place across the bridge in New Jersey, a real place and at the same time also a fantasy place that they want to escape to.

Jack: I was born in New Jersey, but I wasn't marooned there.

John: You'll have to read the book. 

Jack: It sounds like a fascinating novel and I certainly lived through that history as well. One of the interesting things is the shift in the word subversive, because at that time subversive meant something entirely negative. It was terrible to be subversive, certain people were going to jail for being subversive and now you can use it as a compliment about a book. Or about a comedian. Oh, he's so subversive. I mean it's changed entirely, but maybe it's going back to the other meanings what with our president. 

John: Now tell me about When Sleep Comes, Shillelagh Songs. Why do you call them Shillelagh Songs? 

Jack: Thank you for pronouncing it correctly. What I'm discovering is that most people don't know how to pronounce it and don't know what it is. For the audience, shillelagh is a club basically, that the Irish used to defeat their enemies and hit them on the head with. But nobody does that any more with shillelaghs. They’re very beautiful and people use them as canes. It's a kind of symbol of the Irish. “The same old shillelagh father brought from Ireland” was an old ‘50s song, that Gene Kelly did. And so the shillelagh for me represents the whole Irish tradition, which I also talk about in this book in various different ways. Suffice it to say in, in let's say 1906, the Irish were No Irish Need To Apply, they're understood as a drunken unreliable people. By 1950, less than 50 years later, the Irish were Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald and they were playing priests in this Protestant country. What happened? My poems explore that a little bit. 

John: We’re both part Irish. 

Jack: We've also had certain other things in common too—and this is perhaps something that people should know about—we are both widowers from a very long-term relationship. Neither of us, I think, was quite expecting to be in this situation where we both are, and that, too, has probably affected us. The book in which I sort of dealt with what happened to me with Adelle, was Grief Songs, and that has a lot of material in it. We had a kind of private world that we made up. And the only two people who knew about it were us. And then she died. And I was the only one left and I didn't know what to do. And it was a world that we referred to daily and we had voices for it. It was a complicated world that we had made up. And I decided to out it. It was called Dellwackia, the country. Dell for Adelle and who was called Dell Dell when she was a child, and I got the name Jack Wack from John Wayne. Jack Wack was me. They were king and queen of Dellwackia. They performed poetry together, rather like Adelle and me, but Jack Wack always played The Palace, you know, because he was king and that's where he played. There were no silly theaters. He only played The Palace. Anyway, I dealt with all of that and allowed it to become more public. And there were drawings that we made and all kinds of stuff. It became much more public. 

John: That’s in your other book, Grief Songs. 

Jack: It's now actually shared in many, many ways by Sangye, who likes the world that I was creating then and we’re able to share that. So it became an enormously important part of her relationship to me. When Sleep Comes, Shillelagh Songs has a whole section called Sangye. When we met, I didn't think there'd be any chance at all of a romantic relationship. I mean, just not possible. But I wanted one. I met her because I was visiting her stepfather David Meltzer, the poet, who was a friend of mine. I know this sounds funny, but I wanted to tell David what I'd say about him when he was dead. I wanted him to know what I'd say after he died. He was dying and he knew it. Yeah. And I did that, but I met this gorgeous young woman, you know, I mean, she walked over to me and said, “I don't believe I know you.” Well, you know, I can fix that. I was enchanted and I didn't know I could feel like that. I came in with the weight of death upon my shoulders and grief and all of those things. And there was this beautiful young woman, but I was 78, she was 34. I didn't think there'd be any chance. So I came home and wrote a poem: “50 Designs to Murder Magic”: Can you say she took your breath away/Yes I can say that/But you talked on to her/And that/ Required/Breath/Can you say she was beautiful/Yes, I can say that/Her hair especially was beautiful/And her serious/Eyes/But she was also/Exceptionally kind/She listened when you spoke/Yes, and laughed/When I said/Something amusing/Yet her laughter seemed almost/Reluctant/As if she couldn't quite help herself/As if something came from within/(As something came from within me)/There was no way on earth we could be lovers/As I left she said, "It was wonderful to meet you."/I thanked her for being so considerate/Her hair moved often/As she moved 

John: Beautiful. 

Jack: And that's where it started. I tried to figure a way to get it to her. That's in this book, that's the beginning of the experience of Sangye that's in this book. And Adelle is here too, of course. 

John: Love and loss. 

Jack: One of the things that you didn't mention is that you had a... I won't say a near-death experience: you died for a brief moment or two. How did that affect you? 

John: I was in the middle of writing The Outlaws of Maroon at that point when... 

Jack: You weren't finished. Wow! 

John: No, I wasn't finished. And while I was lying... 

Jack: Terrible time to have that happen. 

John: While I was lying on the operating table, I thought of Lao Tze, the writer of the Tao Te Ching. The story is: he was leaving by the Western Gate and the keeper of the Western Gate held him there and wouldn't open the Western Gate until he wrote down and gave him a copy of the Tao Te Ching. And I was thinking how fortunate that Lao Tze didn't exit the Western Gate without leaving us the Tao Te Ching. I thought I was not going to have that opportunity to leave this work which I was working on. So, when I got back from my near-death experience, I just dug into it because at that point, I didn’t know how long I was going to live. I thought, well okay. I'm going to make the most of this short time and finish this work because it was important to me. 

Jack: One of the things I think that happens to older writers is the presence of death. 

John: Absolutely. 

Jack: I had... it's not quite the same kind of experience. It was a very strange experience. I saw Adelle through her death and wrote a book about it, Grief Songs. That really helped me as I was seeing her through her death to deal with it. It was very, very difficult for me and her death was the worst day of my life, the day she died. Bar none. Undoubtedly worse than the day of my own death whenever that will be. How do you deal with that stuff? When Sleep Comes, Shillelagh Songs is also a kind of result of that. One of the things that seems to have happened to me is that my writing got better. And though I've always been reasonably prolific, I've gotten more prolific and I found myself in a situation in which I'd be writing a doggerel poem, something for somebody's birthday. Just to wish them a happy birthday. Nothing much. And it would start to get good. You get some good lines and things like that. It would become better than the doggerel poem I just started out to write. And that kind of thing happens. I think there's a great line in Whitman’s poem, "When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d." Death's outlet song of life. I think that's what I've been experiencing. I survived the death Adelle had to die, and it's death's outlet song of life that I have been experiencing in this kind of crazy creativity that I've been going through recently. But you too. Death gave you a voice to speak. 

John: It gave me a voice to speak and also it really changed a lot of things in my approach. Now, I really gather up all of my energy when I'm writing, to write only the most important things because I don't really know if I have time for the garbage. 

Jack: I don't know your new book yet, The Outlaws of Maroon, because I’ve had no chance to read it. I'm anxious to. Was the book changed because of your near-death experience? 

John: I became totally focused on it. The book originally came to me from the sky. I sat down to write something else and all of a sudden from out of nowhere, this book came to me. 

Jack: I understand completely. Yeah, Jack Spicer used to say that poetry comes from Martians. 

John: Yes it does. To me poetry is kind of the same thing. It’s floating across the room and you kind of grab it and pull it down. 

Jack: Right, yes. Or it grabs you. 

John: It grabs you and pulls you down. 

Jack: One of the very interesting things about your whole career has been the extent of which you've been involved in politics as well as poetry and your work has been trying to meld the two in some ways or another. 

John: Poetry is really part of my life, but not my whole life. The creative part that shines a light on the rest of my life and brings energy to the rest of my life. 

Jack: What's the rest of your life? 

John: I'm just an ordinary person. Just getting up, putting my shoes on in the morning. 

Jack: I'm just an ordinary man. 

[Laughter] 

Jack: You had a career as a woodworker. 

John: Yes, I made a living as a woodworker for over 40 years. 

Jack: Do you still do that now that you're retired? As a hobby or anything like that? 

John: No. You need machinery. I still have hand tools. I do a few things. Also it's dangerous machines and heavy work, so I don't do that anymore. 

Jack: Good idea. I can see why. Now we're going to read for about 30 minutes each at Bird and Beckett in San Francisco on the 30th at 6:30. Can we tell people what to expect? 

John: You will be reading from the Shillelagh Songs, and I'll be reading from The Outlaws of Maroon.  

Jack: That's true. But will we overwhelm them? We hope so. We're old guys. We've got a lot to say. So we hope that the people who are listening to this or reading it will be interested to come to the reading. We've done many readings, so we're not newbies at this at all, and we love both of us to perform. And we’re old friends. I think some of that will come through in the reading too, the affection and respect that we feel for one another, which is not always the case among poets. 

John: It will be a lot of fun too. 

 

 

 

 

 

Worth Noting and Showing Up:

• Tuesday: The City Council 6 pm regular meeting agenda is still very long even though the 40 items on consent should not take a lot of time. The Hot Items on action are: 5-year paving plan, 44. Establishing Outdoor Emergency Shelter, 46. Purchase order for 9 trucks.
• Wednesday: Both the Energy Commission and the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission look worth attending, unfortunately they both are at the same time and neither are recorded.
• Thursday: The Council Budget Committee meets and the agenda includes fiscal policy and cannabis cryptocurrency tax. The Zoning adjustment Board will review the proposed 7-story apartment building (retail ground floor) at the Touchless Carwash site.

Future:

• The January 28 City Council meeting agenda is available for comment and follows the weekly summary of meetings. Key items: 13. Surveillance: Technology and Acquisition Reports 15. Resolution for Safe overnight RV Parking at Designated City-Owned Parking Lots
• January 30 - Are You Prepared for the Next Power Outage, 6:30 – 8 pm, at 1606 Bonita, Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, CERT trainer Sam Freeman will present seminar on alternatives to utility powered appliances and alternative power sources https://bdpnnetwork.org/event/are-you-prepared-for-the-next-power-outage/
• February 1, Climate Disruption, Migration, and the Rise of Walls, 7-9 pm, 2939 Ellis, South Berkeley Senior Center, $5 admission – no one turned away for lack of funds

http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/climate-disruption-migration-and-the-rise-of-walls-february-1/

• February 20, Berkeley 2020 Census Town Hall with Supervisor Keith Carson, 5:30 – 7 pm, Ed Roberts Campus

Sunday, January 19, 2019

No City meetings or events found

Monday, January 20, 2019

Martin Luther King Jr Holiday – City offices closed

Tax the Rich Rally, with music by Occupella, 4 – 5 pm at the Top of Solano in front of the Closed Oaks Theater, Rain Cancels

Tuesday, January 21, 2019 

Parks and Waterfront Commission – Marina Fiscal Subcommittee, 9 – 10:30 am at 2180 Milvia, Maple Room, 3^rd Floor, Agenda: 7. Review of Marin Finances, 8. Public Trust Revenue, 9. Status of Marina Area Specific Plan 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Parks_and_Waterfront_Commission.aspx 

Solano Avenue Business Improvement District Advisory Board, no regular meeting schedule, at 1821 Catalina Ave, Thousand Oaks Baptist Church, Agenda: 4. Planned Expenditures for 2020 including Event Planning 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Solano_BID_Board.aspx 

Berkeley City Council, 1231 Addison Street, BUSD Board Room 

4 pm Closed Session, Agenda: Conference with Labor Negotiators, employee group Berkeley Police Association 

6 pm Regular Session, Agenda: City Council January 21 meeting available for comment, email council@cityofberkeley.info CONSENT: 1. Ratify license agreement for Jazz School to use 1947 Center for 3-month term ending March 31, 2020, 2. Ratify $150,000 contract with Capoeira, 6. $675,000 total 3 yr Contracts Copying Services, 7. $112,000 Contract with Venture Tactical for Firefighters Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), 8. $47,000 Contract with First Spear of California (FSOC) for Firefighters PPE, 9. $166,680 Contract with Michael Brady for Emergency Management Training for City Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and Department of Operations Center (DOC), 10. Designate line of succession in disaster, 11. Grant Application for funding from Urban Areas Security Initiative (UASI) for $56,472 Emergency Medical Training Equipment and $53,134 purchase Polaris Fire/Rescue Utility Vehicle, 12. Grant Application for funding from CA Dept of Forestry and Fire Protection for $800,484 for 3-year vegetation mitigation program in Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) in Berkeley Fire Zones 2 and 3, 13. Add $25,000 (total $100,000) and extend current contract by 4 months with Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS), 14. Add $24,000 (total $78,500) to contract with Resource Development Associates (RDA) to provide evaluation consulting services for the Homeless Outreach and Treatment Team (HOTT), 15. Release of Resale Restrictions on Redevelopment Homeowner Loans, 16. Grant Applications total $2.625 million for 2527 San Pablo (SAHA) and 2001 Ashby (RCD) and $4.047 million in state AHSC funds for project-related transportation and infrastructure improvements, 17. Ordinance for 2012 Berkeley Way Partial Assignment and Third Amendment to Disposition and Development Agreement, Ground Leases, 18. Removed, 19. Establish Mental Health Nurse Classification Series, 20. $285,609 payment to State of CA Self-Insurance Fund (Worker’s Comp) for Fiscal Year 2020, 21. Add $225,000 (total $621,000) to Contract with Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc (ESRI) for Enterprise Graphical Information Systems (GIS) for software license maintenance and support July 1, 2020 – June 30, 2023, 22. Add $73,658 (total $329,061) May 1, 2016 – June 30, 2021 with ThirdWave Corporation for Digital Strategic Plan Refresh and RapidWorkFlow® Process Modeling Certification Training, 23. Add $28,620 (total $128,620) to Contract with Presidio Network Solutions to develop a Cyber Resilience Plan (CRP), 24. Michael H. Weiss Memorial Bench at Cesar Chavez Park, 25. Add $60,000 (total $384,335) to Contract with Bellingham to replace damaged finger docks at Berkeley Marina, 26. Add $90,000 (total $190,000) to contract with Epic Recruiting for Police and professional staff recruiting, 27. Add $13,600,000 (total $26,661,930) withRecology, Inc Blossom Valley Organics – North facility for hauling and processing organic compostable green and food waste, terms thru Feb 28, 2025, 28. Mental Health Commission Appointments of Maria Moore, Edward Opton, Farzaneh Izadi, 29. Oppose new US base in Henoko-Oura Bay of Okinawa, 32. Short Term Referral to City Manager on Climate Emergency Response and Environmental Sustainability to 1. Improve and increase Community Engagement, 2. Identify Funding resources to implement 1 & 3. And 3. Require all City Council items and staff reports to include Climate Impacts in addition to Environmental Sustainability. 33. Budget Referral Equal Pay Audit, 35. Small Business Listening Sessions, 36. Code Enforcement on Receivership, 39. Reaffirm Roe v. Wade, 40. No War with Iran, Items 30, 31, 34, 38, allocation of Councilmember discretionary funds, ACTION: 41. Parking (RPP) 1500 block of Lincoln, 42. Extend ADU Urgency Ordinance by 10 months and 15 days to comply with new STATE Law pending further analysis and adoption of local regulations, 43. a.&b. Five year Paving Plan, 44. Establishing Outdoor Emergency Shelter, 45. Confirm Measure P Allocations FY 2020-2021, 46. Purchase Order for $492,284 plus $245,000 to add plug-in hybrid when it becomes available for 9 Ford Super Duty F-Series Pickup Trucks, 47. Require Kitchen Exhaust Hood Ventilation prior to execution of contract for sale or close of escrow, 48. City Council revisions of Rules and Procedure, 49. a.&b. purchase of, provision of sugar sweetened beverages with City funds or sale of sugar sweetened beverages on City property, INFORMATION REPORTS: 50. 2019 Business Survey Results, 51. Small Business Retention Programs, 52. Measure T1. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx 

Wednesday, January 22, 2019 

Civic Arts Commission, 6 – 8 pm at 1901 Russell St, Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch Library, Agenda: 6. a. Report on Civic Arts Grants, b. Approval of Grant Application Finalists FY2021, 7. Presentations: a. T1 Phase 1 & 2, b. Public Art Funding Audit 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CivicArtsCommissionHomepage/ 

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission, 7 – 9 pm at 997 Cedar St, Fire Department Training Center, Agenda: 3. Notifications to Residents in High risk fire areas, 4. Underground Utilities, 5. T1, 6. Special Tax assessment for Wildfire Prevention, 7. Public Safety Power Shutoff in 2019 and future, 8. Emergency preparedness 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedFiles/Fire/Commissions/Commission_for_Disaster_and_Fire_Safety/DFSC%20Agenda%20Packet%2020-01-22.pdf 

Energy Commission, 6:30 – 9 pm at 1947 Center St, Agenda: 5. Utility User Tax, 6. Climate Action Fund, 7. EBCE, 8. BESO (energy use evaluation), 9. PSPS 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Energy_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Police Review Commission, 7 – 10 pm, at 2939 Ellis, South Berkeley Senior Center, Agenda: 10. Lexipol Policies: Emergency Operations Plan, Officer Involved Shooting/Injury Review Board, Biological Samples, Response to Bomb Calls, Contact and Temporary Detentions 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Police_Review_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Thursday, January 23, 2019 

City Council Budget & Finance Committee, 2 pm, at 2180 Milvia, 6^th Floor Redwood Room, Agenda: 2. Review of Council’s Fiscal Policies, 3. Cannabis Cryptocurrency Tax 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Budget___Finance.aspx 

Community Health Commission, 6:30 – 9 pm at 2939 Ellis St. South Berkeley Senior Center, Agenda: Presentations: Dr. Lisa Hernandez, Health Officer Update, Tobacco Prevention Program, Action: Cannabis Retailer Operating Hours 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Community_Health_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Mental Health Commission, 7 – 9 pm at 1947 Center St, Agenda: 3. Interview-vote on nomination of Ann Hawkins 7. Mandated 1-hour training 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Mental_Health_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Zoning Adjustment Board, 7 pm at 1231 Addison St, BUSD Board Room, Agenda: 

2336 Eighth Street – construct 1242 sq ft 2-story addition, adding 2 bedrooms (total 8) to existing duplex, - on consent 

2212 Ashby – construct 118 sq ft 1-story addition to enlarge bedroom and add bathroom to existing duplex on lot that is over density - on consent 

910 Ashby – demolish a 2400 sq ft commercial building – on consent 

1872 Allston – construct 1955 sq ft, 2-story single family dwelling, ave. height 25’6” – on consent 

2150 – 2176 Kittredge – demolish 5-story commercial building, 1-story convenience store and carwash facility, merge two parcels, construct 75 ft 7-story mixed-use, 23,000 sq ft ground floor commercial area, 165 dwellings and 52 off-street parking spaces, staff recommend approve 

2590 Bancroft Way – preview – demolish 2-story commercial building, construct 8-story mixed-use building, 87 dwellings (5 very low income) 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/zoningadjustmentsboard/ 

Friday, January 24, 2019 

California on Fire – Toyota protest rally, 3 – 5 pm, at 2400 Shattuck, Toyota Dealership, can’t come call Toyota USA CEO Jim Lentz @ 800-331-4331. 

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a29818835/trump-toyota-fuel-economy/ 

Saturday, January 25, 2019 

No City Events Found 

Sunday, January 26, 2019 

No City Events Found 

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City Council January 28 meeting available for comment, email council@cityofberkeley.info CONSENT: 1. $75,000 Contract with Lake Research Partners for 2020 Registered Voter Survey, 3. Enter Participation Agreement with Pension Stabilization Trust for IRS Section 115 Trust Fund, 4. Add $50,000 (total $100,000) with Albany Community Access Resources and Services (Albany CARES) for Mental Health Services, 5. Apply for Infill Infrastructure Grant (IIG) for 1601 Oxford, 6. Sell 1631 Fifth St, 7. Cost Sharing Agreement with EBMUD not to exceed $855,264 (includes 20% contingency) for pipeline and paving Ellsworth and Stuart, 8. 2020 Regional Body Appointments, 9. Resolution ”New Border Vision” migrants are part of human family deserving dignity and respect, 10. Allocation Discretionary Funds for Dorothy Day, 11. Letter supporting dedicated bus lane on Bay Bridge, 10. Letter Supporting revival of Berkeley Bus Rapid Transit, ACTION: 12. Cannabis Ordinance Revisions, 13. Surveillance: Technology Report, Acquisition Report, Use Policy for License Plate Readers, GPS Trackers, Body Worn Cameras, 14. goBerkeley Residential Shared Parking Pilot Project Update, 15. Resolution for Safe RV Parking at Designated City-Owned Parking Lots during overnight non-business hours, INFORMATION REPORTS: 16. Public Health Division Recommendations on Cannabis, 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx 

 

 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

0 Euclid – Berryman Reservoir TBD 

2422 Fifth St – mixed-use building 2-25-2020 

1581 LeRoy Ave – convert vacant elementary school property – LPC & ZAB 2-25-2020 

Remanded to ZAB or LPC With 90-Day Deadline 

1155-73 Hearst (develop 2 parcels) – referred back to City Council – to be scheduled 

Notice of Decision (NOD) With End of Appeal Period 

1332 Alcatraz 1-29-2020 

1516 Carleton 1-29-2020 

1731 Channing 1-22-2020 

1210 Cornell 1-22-2020 

1168 Cragmont 2-4-2020 

1236 Dwight 1-27-2020 

1795 Fourth 1-27-2020 

168 Hill 1-27-2020 

1332-34 Oxford 1-29-2020 

2323 Rose 1-23-2020 

1562 San Lorenzo 1-28-2020 

2929 Seventh 1-30-2020 

2768 Shasta 1-27-2020 

1241 Sixth 1-22-2020 

1850 Solano 1-22-2020 

1632 Sterling 1-27-2020 

1508 Virginia 2-11-2020 

1414 Walnut 1-28-2020 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/planning_and_development/land_use_division/current_zoning_applications_in_appeal_period.aspx 

 

WORKSHOPS 

Feb 4 – Discussion of Community Poll (Ballot Measures), Adeline Corridor Plan 

March 17 – Undergrounding Task Force, CIP Update (PRW and Public Works), Measure T1 Update 

May 5 – Budget Update, Crime Report 

June 23 – Climate Action Plan/Resiliency Update, Digital Strategic Plan FUND$/Replacement Website Update 

July 21 and Sept 29 – no workshops scheduled “yet” 

Oct 20 – Update: Berkeley’s 2020 Vision, BMASP/Berkeley Pier-WETA Ferry 

 

Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations 

Cannabis Health Considerations 

Systems Realignment 

Vision 2050 

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To Check For Regional Meetings with Berkeley Council Appointees go to 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Committee_and_Regional_Body_Appointees.aspx 

 

To check for Berkeley Unified School District Board Meetings go to 

https://www.berkeleyschools.net/schoolboard/board-meeting-information/ 

 

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This meeting list is also posted on the Sustainable Berkeley Coalition website. 

http://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet under activist’s calendar http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com 

 

When notices of meetings are found that are posted after Friday 5:00 pm they are added to the website schedule https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html and preceded by LATE ENTRY