On Monday, April 28, 2025, at 5 pm, the Berkeley City Council will consider the Ceasefire Resolution. passed by Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission last year on September 30 in an 8 to 7 vote. 

For so long I’ve wanted Berkeley to live up to its history. Instead on October 24, 2023, Richmond, California, was first city in the nation to call for a ceasefire in the Israel Gaza war. San Francisco and Oakland followed in Richmond’s footsteps passing ceasefire resolutions. Yet here in this city which is thought of worldwide as progressive, liberal or whatever label you want to use for a city that is known for the Free Speech Movement and once stood for the end of apartheid, we wait. 

Here while we wait we recite the Land Acknowledgement Statement to start city meetings: “The City of Berkeley recognizes that the community we live in was built on the territory of xučyun, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chochenyo apeaking Ohlone people, the ancestors and descendants of the sovereign Verona Band of Alameda County…” 

Yet we fail to acknowledge the similarities between taking the land we live on from the indigenous peoples and the Nakba, expelling approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and homeland, dispossessing them of their belongings , in order to establish the Jewish majority nation-state of Israel in Palestine. 

I’m not expecting much from the Berkeley City Council. I see councilmembers’ minds made up as they’ve picked their sides with their Peace and Justice Commission appointees. Former Mgyor Arreguin and Councilmembers Tregub and Humbert quickly appointed commissioners prior to that September meeting who could be trusted to vote against the Ceasefire Resolution. After the vote, Councilmembers Bartlett and Taplin replaced the commissioners who voted for the Ceasefire Resolution. 

New Mayor Ishii has left in place Arreguin’s appointee, at least for the present, though on numerous occasions in her campaign she voiced her support for a ceasefire resolution. 

It is possible that the council gave a brief sigh of relief that a vote was unnecessary as a ceasefire had been negotiated and took effect on January 19, 2025, during the Biden Trump transition, but Netanyahu breached the ceasefire on March 18, declaring Israel has “resumed combat in full force”. 

gIt should be no surprise that it was Israel that broke the ceasefire, not Hamas. 

On October 28, 2023 , Netanyahu had used scripture to sell his war to Jewish supremacists in Israel and right-wing Evangelicals in the US, citing Deuteronomy 25:17, urging them never to forget Amalek. . 

The story of Amalek is found in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) or Old Testament in Christian Bibles in Deuteronomy and 1 Samuel. The command to which Netanyahu refers is clearest in 1 Samuel 15:3, “Now go and smite Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass”. 

Even before the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, on September 22, 2023, Netanyahu stood before the United Nations General Assembly with his “New Middle East” map showing Gaza and the West Bank completely absorbed into Israel, leaving no Palestinian territory. 

The phrase the “River to the Sea” when uttered by a college student or pro Palestine person is immediately declared anti-Semitic, but when that same phrase comes from the lips of Netanyahu it slides off without an issue. 

Removing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not end the brutality against the Palestinians. 

Last week I finished One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad my twenty-first book on Palestine, Gaza, the West Bank and Israel since October 2023. If I were to recommend just one book from my list, it would be One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. If I was to recommend a second book it would be the first book I read after October 7, 2023, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy by Nathan Thrall. 

My recommendation for a third reading might be The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917 – 2017 by Rashid Khalidi.  

If you want to get a flavor for the developing mindset in Israeli history and the violence Palestinians suffer under then pick up and read Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman. In my July 2, 2024 Activist’s Diary, I wrote that Rise and Kill First was brutal with descriptions of bombings and torture followed by murder, but even that did not prepare me for brutality in Ilan Pappe’s description of the Nakba in The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. 

The meticulous surveillance and intelligence gathering in Rise and Kill First to limit what we politely call collateral damage (killing innocent civilians) is gone with the present-day program Lavender that uses AI algorithms to identify suspected Hamas militants to develop kill lists. Then the program Where’s Daddy tracks when the AI identified suspect on the kill list goesh home, as it is easier for the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) to kill by bombing the entire building into rubble. 

It so often feels like there is no interest in portraying the Palestinians as anything other than terrorists rather than as a people oppressed by one of the most powerful militaries in the world, supported by the United States with funding, bombs and munitions. 

Killing entire families, maiming and orphaning children is routine, giving the acronym WCNSF (wounded child no surviving family) and earning Gaza the designation as the place with more per capita child amputees than any other place in the world. 

The sheer number of Palestinians killed tells a story different from the one which floats out of the mouths of pro-Israel politicians and such. As of April 8, 2025, the Gaza Health Ministry lists more than 52,000 Palestinians killed. That is the number of bodies counted or more accurately the body parts large enough to identify the person. The 52,000 is not the missing dead buried under buildings bombed into piles of rubble. In the dead are counted 166 journalists and media workers though I’ve heard numbers of up to 200, 120 academics, over 224 humanitarian aid workers which includes 179 employees of UNRWA. 

The numbers of Palestinians killed are staggering with 80% estimated to be civilians and 31% children. 

It is hardly a war between two equally balanced powers. 

1,706 is the number of Israeli lives lost including October 7, 2023 for the same time period. 

gggOHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) found that 70% of the Palestinians killed in residential buildings or similar housing were women and children. 

Even that number somehow takes in the assumption that just being male risks being labeled as a Hamas militant. 

The war against Gaza is the place where journalists are targeted and more have died than in any other war in history. Fatma Hassona the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist living in Gaza became another number to add to the list. On April 16, 2025 the day after Fatma Hassona learned that the documentary film about her and her work Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk had been selected to premiere at the ACID Cannes 2025 film festival she was killed with her family by an Israeli missile that hit the building where she lived. 

For now, her Facebook lives on https://www.facebook.com/fatma.hassona.526 

I might add Peter Beinhart’s book Being Jewish after the Destruction of Gaza to the reading list. 

On May 4, 2025 I’ll be attending the conversation between Peter Beinhart and Rabbi David Cooper at the Kehilla Community Synagogue (on zoom and in person). The conversation with Beinhart will, of course, be after the Berkeley Council vote, but you can listen to what I expect will be much the same with Chris Hayes in the April 15, 2025 episode of Why Is This Happening? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-jewish-after-the-destruction-of-gaza/id1382983397?i=1000703563937 

Another book that gives much to think about is The World After Gaza: A History by Pankaj Mishra. There are other excellent books that fill in what is absent from most of the media that crosses our screens. 

You can read the non-fiction book The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan about two families one Arab, one Jewish who occupied the same house in al-Ramla. The Palestinian Khairi family was forced to flee the house they built. The Jewish Eshkenazi family from Bulgaria emigrated to Israel after WWII and on arriving in Israel was given the choice of which vacant house they wished to move in to as their own. They chose the house with the lemon tree. 

Last August I joined a monthly online discussion group of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917 – 2017 by Rashid Khalidi with Rabbi Cat and the Beyt Tikkun team. I read The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine in book club well over a year ago, but I was interested in being part of a group led by a rabbi. I’ve missed more sessions than I’ve attended, but it has still been enlightening that like others in the group, we knew little to nothing about the Palestinians, their history or culture. To say The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine is eye opening is an understatement. 

There is so much information packed into The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine that I gave up taking notes for my reading journal from my library copy and bought the book. When I check the New York Times best seller list it has been on the list every week but one since October 2023. 

The problem with these recommendations is that reading serious non-fiction literature in any sort of volume doesn’t seem to be something many people do. Even reading one book a year is too many for too many people including some of my closest friends. For me it was the pandemic that spurred me into the voracious reader I am now. 

It is the Palestinian voice that we so rarely hear. Yet those of us who seek out to hear those voices are accused of bias, being uninformed as if the stream of pro-Israel content is the end of the story and conversation. 

Where and how we get the news or choose no news at all is where the generational and societal divides sit and the parallel universes begin. 

While main stream media, well-funded politicians, Zionist organizations and religious orders pushed supporting Israel and called anyone supporting the Palestinians in Gaza anti-Semitic and suggested they were funded by Hamas and terrorists, the college students who demonstrated so fervently last year for a ceasefire were seeing firsthand the war on Gaza as a genocide long before the International Court of Justice made it official. 

If Zionism isn’t part of your vocabulary, Zionism is the creation of and support of a Jewish nation state. The movement for a Jewish nation originated in Europe in the late 19^th century. 

The 1917 Balfour Declaration by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Lionel Walter Rothschild established support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. At the time less than 10% of the population of Palestine was Jewish, but with the signing of the Balfour Declaration at the end of WWI, the British began to facilitate the immigration of European Jews into Palestine. 

The Rapture is an Evangelical Christian belief in the End of Times originating in the 1830s centering on Jerusalem and the return of Jews to Israel as necessary to bring the Second Coming of Christ when all dead Christians will be resurrected and join with living Christians to rise in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. 

Most Christians do not believe in the rapture theology. 

Christians United for Israel (CFUI) a Christian Zionist organization which claims to have more than 10 million members is led by televangelist John Charles Hagee. Hagee’s support for Israel is wrapped in his ministry and belief in the Rapture. 

Some sources will give other dates for the origin of Zionism and the Rapture and some groups will claim that biblical history predetermines that Israel is the promised land for Jews, but any thorough reading of the bible gives multiple cultures as occupying the land. And through various times in ancient history they were at war with each other. Regardless, the thrust of the Balfour Declaration and the upheaval that followed and continues up to the present with the taking the land from a population that was 90% not Jewish to create a Jewish nation state was predictable and predicted. 

The Peace and Justice Commission is not expected to take up the ceasefire resolution again though the March 3, 2025 agenda included “Discussion and Possible Action Resolution Opposing an American Occupation of Gaza”. This was placed on the agenda after President Trump’s meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Oval Office on February 4, 2025 when Trump said that all two million of the Palestinians in Gaza should be relocated to countries like Egypt and Jordan and the U.S. would take over the Gaza Strip and rebuild it into the “Middle East Riviera”. 

The commission meeting room was filled that March evening with attendees to speak on the resolution. I counted the members of the public who gathered in groups in support of the resolution to outnumber those against it by about 3 to 1. One of the members in the opposition wrapped himself in an Israeli flag while others in the small group passed out orange balloons to represent two children with reddish hair who taken as hostages and died. 

The item was pulled before it came up for discussion. Most of the pro-resolution group received the announcement early and had already left by the time it was made official. 

In One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This Omar El Akkad lays out to question how killing and maiming became justified. 

Isn’t that where we should be? How can we continue to justify daily killing and maiming Palestinians and not call for a complete and permanent ceasefire?

On a recent Saturday at the North Berkeley BART station I thought of these lines from the prologue to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . .

Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages. . .

The good-humored, almost jovial gathering there, which looked to number in the thousands, was pitched as an angry rebuke to the atrocious transgressions of Co-Presidents Trump and Musk. It was all of that, but it was more than that.

Those of us who were there have survived (quoting a later poet) the winter of our discontent and the drought of March, so now that April’s showers have awakened our roots we’re ready to go. Many of the assembled folks were remembering that they’d been there, done that, sometimes with success, sometimes not so much. They seemed indeed to be longing to go on another the pilgrimage to set the world straight, as they had done in the past.  

On my phone I was in touch with three family members at the big gathering in D.C.,and more family and friends in various categories in four or five other places. Several of them had been in parents’ backpacks in earlier crusades, Moderately large crowds in major cities were reported, but even in small towns where this was the first-ever gathering like this crowds were big too.  

For old-timers like me, the fine weather and many clever home-made signs sparked nostalgic memories of our conscientious youth. Living in chilly Ann Arbor as I was then, for me traveling in April on pilgrimage to protest in Washington with its cherry blossoms offered a welcome foretaste of spring.  

Our first pilgrimage in Michigan was a weekly picket line around the block containing the Ann Arbor City Council meeting, towing one or two small daughters in a wagon. For us as young parents it was a pleasant experience, a chance to catch up with friends as we walked that line for a couple of summers of Monday nights. It's hard to believe now, but it took two or three years in the early 1960s, even in a liberal, educated college town like Ann Arbor, to achieve something as modest as a local ordinance barring racial discrimination in rental housing. Yes, I know, racism still exists there, here and everywhere, but at least a few of its most egregious manifestations have been banned sometimes and somewhere during my lifetime. 

Stopping the Vietnam War took a lot longer. The best we could do with grass roots organizing was to raise public consciousness that there was a problem, and that alone took the better part of the mid-sixties. But that work was a necessary and effective precursor to the more dramatic protest activities that others could engage in later on which finally had some effect.. 

Thinking about those past pilgrimages is what reminded me of those lines from the prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tale, which in turn caused me to recall the best teacher I had in my years at what we then called “Cal” at the end of the 1950s. That would be Mr. Muscatine (at Cal we didn’t call English professors “Doctor” in those days) who taught the Chaucer course. He modestly described himself as “the guy they call ‘old whan that Aprille’. “ 

Mr. Muscatine didn’t lecture us about politics, finding plenty to say about Chaucer, but later I learned about his personal history. 

Here’s Wikipedia’s account: 

“Shortly after he was hired, the State of California began enforcing a state law, the Levering Act, requiring public employees to sign a loyalty oath, and more than 11,000 University of California employees signed rather than risk losing their jobs.^[4] Muscatine was one of 31 academics who refused to sign the loyalty oath, and he was fired for his refusal.^[5] Muscatine later explained his rationale in refusing to sign the loyalty oath: 

‘I felt that in the first place it was a violation of the oath to the U.S. Constitution that I had already taken. And secondly it was a violation of academic freedom, which is the idea that in a free society scholars and teachers are allowed to express and believe anything that they feel to be true. As a young assistant professor, I had been insisting to the kids that you stick to your guns and you tell it the way you see it and you think for yourself and you express things for yourself and I felt that I couldn't really justify teaching students if I weren't behaving the same way. So I simply couldn't sign the oath.^[6] 

“Muscatine and others who were dismissed challenged the action in court and ultimately won a landmark victory when the California Court of Appeal in April 1951 ordered the University of California to reinstate the fired academics. In its decision, the Court of Appeal wrote: 

‘Any other conclusion would be to approve that which from the beginning of our government has been denounced as the most effective means by which one special brand of political or economic philosophy can entrench and perpetuate itself to the eventual exclusion of all others; the imposition of any more inclusive test would be the forerunner of tyranny and oppression. ... While this court is mindful of the fact that the action of the regents was at the outset undoubtedly motivated by a desire to protect the university from the influences of subversive elements dedicated to the overthrow of our constitutional government and the abolition of our civil liberties, we are also keenly aware that equal to the danger of subversion from without by means of force and violence is the danger of subversion from within by the gradual whittling away and the resulting disintegration of the very pillars of our freedom.^[7]’ “ 

Members of our family graduated from Columbia University in 1985. Their class walked out of their own graduation ceremony to protest the university’s investment in apartheid South Africa. But now that same Columbia University is caving to pressure from the Trump regime’s phony claims of antisemitism. Many more schools are on the chopping block. 

Is it too much to ask today’s Columbia and its peers to honor and defend the concept of academic freedom when they are bullied over trumped-up charges by Trump/Musk, as Mr. Muscatine and 30 UC faculty colleagues did during the Red Scare of the McCarthy era? 

Sadly, in that era most institutions of higher learning didn’t defend their faculty members and students any better then than some of their peers do now. But if academics – even individuals--stand up for principle they set an example for future generations. 

Another example: Chandler Davis, a distinguished mathematician and lifelong activist, went to jail in 1960 because he invoked the First Amendment in his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954 against former colleagues on the left. He lost, and served six months in federal jail when he’d exhausted his appeals. 

I was inspired as an undergraduate to join my first demonstration, in San Francisco in May of 1960, by what I’d learned about Chan Davis’s fight against HUAC. 

The University of Michigan publication reprinted below is a belated tribute to him. More detailed and more dramatic tributes to him from friends and admirers cano be found on the internet. 

From the University of Michigan press office: 

“The University of Michigan’s annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom was established by the University Senate in honor of three academics who were wrongfully dismissed by the university for refusing to cooperate in the witch-hunt led by the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

“In September 2022, H. Chandler Davis, the last surviving member of the group, passed away. Davis was a man of firm political commitments, a remarkable man of great and varied talents. Born in 1924 in Ithaca, New York, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and after the war undertook a Ph.D. in mathematics at Harvard, which he completed in 1950. 

“His principal research investigations involved linear algebra and operator theory in Hilbert spaces. Additionally, he made contributions to numerical analysis, geometry and algebraic logic. He also identified the properties of the remarkable fractal known as the “Dragon Curve.” 

After Harvard, Davis came to U-M as an instructor. It was at this time that he was called to testify before a hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee in Lansing. Alongside him were colleagues Mark Nickerson and Clement L. Markert, and his student friends Edward Shaffer and Myron E. Sharpe. All were “unfriendly witnesses, refusing to confess” their political dissent. 

Davis, unlike the others, based his refusal to answer only on the First Amendment, waiving his protection under the Fifth Amendment. Thereby he deliberately invited a citation for contempt of Congress, so as to give him standing to argue in court that the committee’s proceedings were unconstitutional. 

He got the citation, all right, but he did not prevail in court. His appeals were exhausted in 1959 when the Supreme Court refused to hear his case. He was sentenced to six months in prison, which he served in 1960. While in prison, he continued his mathematics research, and in a paper published in 1963 attached the acknowledgement “Research supported in part by the Federal Prison System. Opinions expressed in this paper are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Bureau of Prisons.” 

Meanwhile, he and Nickerson had been dismissed from the university. This action of U-M’s administration drew censure from the American Association of University Professors. Unable to get a permanent job in the United States, Davis moved to the University of Toronto, where he stayed until the end of his career, becoming a Canadian citizen. 

He was a political activist throughout his life, embracing causes that fought against injustice and oppression. For several years he was a member of the Communist Party, but he had become disillusioned with it well before appearing before HUAC. Later in life he said he regretted his naiveté about the communist movement but not his activism, preferring to describe himself as “red-green eco-socialist.” 

He came to regret his military service because of the use of nuclear bombs by the U.S. During the 1960s, he campaigned against the war in Vietnam and visited North Vietnam in 1971. He chaired the Toronto Anti-Draft Program and frequently hosted draft dodgers in his family home. 

In more recent times, Davis became an active campaigner for Palestinian rights. He remained an activist to the last, giving an address from his hospital bed in July to an event organized in defense of the Russian mathematician Azat Miftakhov, a dissident who has been wrongfully imprisoned by the Russian authorities since 2019. 

A committed supporter of the Academic Freedom Lectures, Davis often attended in person, or remotely when he became too ill to travel. He was committed to a positive approach and welcomed the chance to speak to the university that had wronged him. 

At the 2018 lecture he said, “I haven’t always been sure of my own welcome here, but today I see a worthy collection of academics, some were administrators, the kind of higher ups to whom we address pleas for allowing free speech. I wish more had been from the other side of the scrimmage, those whose academic freedom is under threat. 

Unfortunately, in today’s political climate there should be an ample supply of faculty speakers whose academic freedom is threatened, with at least a few willing to speak truth to power even when their institutional administration doesn’t. 

From Politico in March of this year: 

The University of Michigan — one of the leading academic bastions of diversity, equity and inclusion in the country — is shuttering the doors of its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and shutting down its model DEI program. 

In an email on Thursday, the university’s leaders pointed to the court-order enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive orders on “restoring merit-based opportunity” and ending DEI programs across the country, as well as the “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education that threatened to eliminate federal funding for universities that did not eliminate their DEI efforts. 

Now the news is all about how Trump’s federal minions are exploiting genuine fear of antisemitism to force compliant administrators at many more institutions of higher learning to turn over personal details of faculty member, including signers of some open letters criticizing Israel’s actions in Gaza. The University of California is getting the same kind of pressure as the University of Michigan. 

Trump/Musk will have succeeded if they use threats to force our academic institutions to dance to their tune. Today when we march with signs decrying Trump and Mosk, we might want to think about past examples set by courageous academic dissidents like Charles Muscatine and Chandler Davis, who backed up their opinions with action. 

This week’s good news is that – finally—Chan Davis’s alma mater is standing up to the Trump regime. Harvard has announced that it’s not ready to let the federal government succeed in what the Guardian describes as “gutting universities of what it sees as a liberal-left bias, while using antisemitism as a cudgel in an authoritarian power grab.” And at Yale (Mr. Muscatine’s alma mater), close to 900 faculty members have signed a letter urging administrators to stand tough against the threatened government takeover. It’s reported that Columbia is trying to walk back its concessions. 

Here in Berkeley, many of us are graduates, faculty members or employees of the University of California. Yesterday the UCB community rallied by the Sproul steps, launching point of the Free Speech Movement. Professor Robert Reich gave a rousing speech invoking past struggles and urging solidarity among threatened schools. 

UC has not—yet—announced compliance with the Trump regime. As the most prestigious public university it could set an example as Harvard has for private universities. Faculty members can follow the example of Charles Muscatine and Chan Davis. 

It’s a pilgrimage everyone can join. We are gathering together again with signs and petitions and letters and even impromptu brass bands to make it clear that impacted resisters are not alone. This week, for example, there was a Thursday rally at the Oakland Social Security office and another one at the Berkeley Tesla dealer on Saturday. 

The rain in April is almost past and the May weather promises to be fine for outdoor rallies. Avante!

The City Council and the Mayor want to make drastic zoning changes in Berkeley’s neighborhoods. They have named the proposed change "Missing Middle Housing," but this name is deceptive: "Missing Middle” does not refer to middle income, but a deceptive description of the intended size of the building they want to be built in single-family neighborhoods. 

Only corporate developers have the resources to develop at this scale. Once these homes are turned into apartment complexes, they will not come back. 

The vote will be on Tuesday, April 29th. (Click here for agenda and attendance details) Despite the fact that these are the biggest changes to the City’s Zoning Ordinance since 1963, changes that will impact thousands of property owners and residents, Mayor Ishii refused to support scheduling a special meeting. The public hearing for the zoning changes will follow two other public hearings on other issues at a regular meeting on Tuesday April 29. A vote is likely immediately after the hearing. YIMBYs will surely turn out to demand this upzoning, so we need to speak out and show up! 

 

The last time major zoning changes were made to residential neighborhoods, every property owner whose property would be affected received written notification about the proposed changes, and five City-run meetings were scheduled in areas that would be affected. This time, however, property owners and residents have received no notification for the April 29 meeting: you'd have to check Council agendas regularly to know what’s going on! The agenda for the meeting, which has only been available to the public since the end of this past week, can be found here: https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas  

Zoning changes are item 30, with a 209 page staff report.  

Would your home be affected? 

Here is a City zoning map: https://berkeley.municipal.codes/BMC/OfficialZoningMap. Most of North Berkeley is zoned R-1 (single family), R-1A (two homes per lot), R-2 (two-family),or R-2A (small multi-family and garden type apartments). If you are in one of those zones, these changes will apply to you.  

What’s wrong with what is being proposed?  

Too many units per lot: The original proposal before the Council would have allowed up to four units. But the latest, more extreme version, allows:  

• R-1: 5 units;
• R-1A and R-2: 6 units;
• R-2A: 7 units.

And the density bonus makes it worse: State density bonus law applies to properties with 5 or more units. If just one of five units is affordable to a low income household, a developer gets a 50% bonus, which permits them to build more units and to exceed the 3-story, 35-foot height limit, so 50-foot apartment buildings could be built! Setbacks could be reduced to zero. The City staff have provided no analysis of the impacts that the density bonus could have as a result of the proposed up-zoning.

Extreme lot coverage standards: Proposed zoning changes increase allowable lot coverage by 50%. Rear setbacks are reduced to five feet. The result: No backyards for kids to play in, fewer trees and gardens, and a reduction in permeable surfaces, which absorb rainfall. Solar panels could be shadowed and privacy reduced.

Gentrification: There is no requirement that any of the units are to be affordable for those who can’t afford new market-rate units. Adding market-rate apartment buildings with higher-income tenants to lower income areas will gentrify those areas  

 

Is there a better alternative? 

Yes. State law has already eliminated single-family zoning. Berkeley could codify state law by rezoning R-1 areas as R-2 or R-2A, with the decision made on a neighborhood--by-neighborhood basis. It’s not necessary to create entirely new extreme zoning standards. We can continue to have back yards and room for trees and greenery. Berkeley can rezone, as originally proposed, for 1-4 unit buildings. Property owners can have more flexibility and more housing can be built without compromising neighborhood livability or the effectiveness of solar panels.  

Let the city know how you feel about this sweeping, uncommunicated change: Write a unique and personal email and send it to your council member and the council at the following email addresses: 

council@berkeleyca.gov
Mayor: mayor@berkeleyca.gov 

District 1 rkesarwani@berkeleyca.gov 

District 2 ttaplin@berkeleyca.gov 

District 3 bbartlett@berkeleyca.gov 

District 4 itregub@berkeleyca.gov 

District 5 sokeefe@berkeleyca.gov 

District 6 bblackaby@berkeleyca.gov 

District 7 clunaparra@berkeleyca.gov 

District 8 mhumbert@berkeleyca.gov 

For more information, please check-out the Berkeley Neighborhoods Council website. 

The public hearing scheduled for the April 29^th meeting should be continued to a special meeting to be held a later date. The Council should take no action on proposed residential upzoning on April 29.

The proposed changes will affect thousands of Berkeley residents and property owners in the flatlands of Berkeley. This is by far the biggest change in residential zoning to come before the Council since 1963. In 1963, the Council rezoned the flatlands, and much of what can be found in current residential zoning came out of that rezoning process.

Before the Council voted on zoning changes in 1963, every property owner in five areas of the flatlands where the changes were proposed received written notification from the City about the changes being proposed. The City staff conducted five public meetings to inform residents and to solicit comments. Then there were hearings before the Planning Commission and the City Council for each of the five areas. The City also did postcard surveys to determine whether residents supported the proposed changes. In all five areas, majorities favored the proposed changes. Based on input received from the residents in the areas affected, the Council made some changes to what was originally proposed.

Continue the Public Hearing: The April 29^th public hearing should be continued and before the continued hearing takes place, every property owner in the areas that would be rezoned should receive written notification about the proposed changes and the continued public hearing. Most Berkeley residents do not check City Council agendas each week and have no idea that the Council is going to be discussing these major changes. It’s also crazy to put this important item on a regular meeting schedule and have the public hearing be the third of three public hearings that night. You’re having a special meeting to discuss a resolution on a foreign policy issue, but something that directly affects thousands of residents does not merit a special meeting? Also our General Plan’s Citizen Participation Element mandates maximizing citizen participation in land use changes. Acting on April 29 would clearly be inconsistent with General Plan policies. 

There are major problems with the proposed changes. The original Missing Middle proposals discussed by the Council called for eliminating single family zoning and allowing duplexes, triplexes and 4-plexes. The latest much more extreme proposal calls for allowing 5, 6 or 7 unit apartment buildings. Once you allow five units, the developer has the option of qualifying for a state density bonus by including one unit affordable to a low income household, that is a household with income at 80% of Area Median Income. (The 2024 limit for a low income family of three in Alameda County is $108,750.) 

The staff report does not include any analysis of how the state density bonus might be used by developers in conjunction with the new zoning being proposed. Certainly a 35 foot height limit would become a 50-52 foot height limit, and the number of units could increase to 7 to 11. The density bonus allows for additional concessions to developers which could lead to zeroing out setbacks. 

Extreme Lot Coverage: Increasing lot coverage to 60% is a very bad idea. With the ADU ordinance allowing ADUs of up 1000 square feet, with that square footage not counting toward lot coverage, you could easily, on a larger 5000 square foot lot, have 80% lot coverage which means the whole lot is covered except minimal side and rear setbacks and some kind of front setback. There would be no yards, little room for trees or gardens or greenery of any kind. Speculators buying up flatlands properties would likely remove existing trees and gardens and put any required open space on the roof (unless the Council precludes that option). Housing that does not include back yards will not be appealing to families who generally like to have somewhere safe where their kids can play outside. With lots more fully taken up by buildings and space for parking vehicles, and with minimal setbacks, there would a reduction in permeable surfaces to absorb rainfall in periods of heavy rain. 

Current lot coverage standards for all R districts distinguish between corner lots and interior lots, allowing greater lot coverage on corner lots, which makes a lot of sense. Lot coverage also varies by height. But the new lot coverage standard of 60% applies to all lots being rezoned, and buildings of any height, which is not a good idea. 

60% lot coverage exceeds the lot coverage standards for R-3 (multiple family), R-4 (multi-family) and R-5 (high density residential). If adopted, areas that were formerly R-1 or R-2 will allow more lot coverage than areas that are meant for denser multi-family housing. That makes no sense. 

One Size Fits All: Treating all areas zoned R-1 through R-2A the same is a bad idea. Some blocks have nothing but one and two story buildings. Constructing buildings that are 3 stories and stretch practically to the rear property line, not to mention 4-5 story buildings that could be built with a density bonus, could have a dramatic negative impact on the residents of adjacent homes. Solar panels could be shadowed, undermining their benefits, and there would reduced access to sunlight generally and a loss of privacy. When new 5 to 11 unit buildings appear on a particular block, the livability of houses on that block would be reduced for its residents. 

Ignoring the General Plan: The extreme changes being proposed, allowing 5 or more units and excessive lot coverage is clearly inconsistent with our General Plan Land Use element which calls for new development in R-zoned areas “compatible with the scale, historic character, and surrounding uses in the area.” The changes are also inconsistent with policies calling for minimizing negative impacts of new development on adjacent residential uses in residential areas and calling for “greater protection of solar access to adjacent properties when new projects or additions are proposed”. 

Threat of Gentrification The new zoning will likely encourage speculators to buy up less expensive single family homes in South and West Berkeley, so that they can demolish them, cut down the trees and build new large apartment buildings in their place. The new units will be market rate and will bring higher income residents into areas that still have substantial numbers of lower income tenants living in older rental housing, much of it rent controlled. Existing tenants will not be able to afford the new units. The area will gentrify. Homeownership opportunities will also be reduced as speculators are likely to buy the least expensive housing in the area, housing that will no longer be available to someone hoping to buy a less ridiculously expensive home instead of renting. 

Not affordable: Missing Middle does not mean affordable to middle income, let alone lower income people. There is no requirement that any of the 5 to 7 units that would be permitted under the proposed zoning would be affordable to people who cannot afford market rate apartments. Buying and demolishing an existing single family home (which should not be allowed by right) and building a new 3 story apartment building in its place will be not be cheap. It will likely only pay if a lot of smaller units are crammed onto the site. And rents will likely all be affordable only to “above moderate” income housholds. It won’t do anything for low-, very-low, and extremely-low income households except to price them out of their neighborhoods. 

No Design Guidelines: There are no design guidelines to go with the proposed new zoning. What’s to stop developers from building the same kind of crappy apartment buildings that helped prompt the 1973 voter-enacted Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance? 

A Better Approach to Missing Middle Upzoning: Stick with existing zoning development standards, especially lot coverage, height and setbacks, and rezone properties that are now R-1 or R-1A to R-2 or to R-2A, taking into account the character of specific neighborhoods when making the changes. The Fire zone should be left alone since increased density does not make sense in those areas which, besides the obvious wildfire risk and evacuation issues, are also poorly served by public transit and are car-dependent. (Remember the popular planning idea of “Transit-Oriented Development.”) 

Existing state law already requires cities to allow building a duplex and two ADUs on any single family zoned lot in Berkeley outside of Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones as designated by the state. Housing is being built, especially ADUs. Berkeley is doing its share, producing numerous housing units on major commercial streets, though most of it, unfortunately, is not affordable to low or even middle income families. And Census date from 2020 shows that Berkeley is already the third densest city in Northern California. (Only San Francisco and Daly City are denser.) 

Why not codify the changes in state law by using the City’s existing zoning standards and rezoning in an intelligent, considered, careful way that allows additional housing in neighborhoods without undermining neighborhood livability while repealing single family zoning consistent with state law changes. 

 

---

Rob Wrenn is a former Planning commissioner and a District 3 resident 

 

Have you ever wondered what your California electeds, State Senator Jesse Arreguin and State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, [yes, that’s her real name] are up to in Sacto? Well, luckily, both of them are well funded by developer dollars, so they boast a generous PR budget which can be used to inform the voters..

Last week Buffy’s PR person put out a lengthy document which fully disclosed her plans to de-fang almost all of California’s development regulations, including the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Commission. It’s an attack plan that Co-President Musk would be proud of.

Here’s the pitch, from her staff’s press release::

“California Legislature Releases Sweeping Bill Package to Fast Track Housing Production

Thursday, March 27, 2025

SACRAMENTO – In a unified effort to tackle California’s housing crisis, a bipartisan and bicameral group of legislators today unveiled the Fast Track Housing package — a suite of more than 20 bills aimed at making housing more affordable by slashing red tape, removing uncertainty, and drastically diminishing the time it takes to get new housing approved and built.

And the ‘nut graf’::

… {L]awmakers are zeroing in on the systemic delays that continue to stall progress on housing development. The Fast Track Housing package focuses on streamlining the processes that have made it so difficult to build housing at the scale and speed California needs.

The package targets the five key bottlenecks that delay housing development: application, CEQA compliance, entitlement, post-entitlement, and enforcement. By addressing inefficiencies at every step, lawmakers aim to reduce project timelines, cut costs, and get shovels in the ground faster.

The package also introduces significant reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), aiming to exempt environmentally friendly housing projects from lengthy reviews. This move, backed by environmental and housing advocates alike, is central to Assemblymember Wicks’ AB 609.

No surprise, this scheme has gotten a lot of Republican support, and why shouldn’t it? It’s a veritable Neo-Liberal manifesto, YIMBY-speak to the core. And because you can’t tell the players without a scorecard, the press release provides a handy list of all its supporters, not just Buff and Jess but the whole bipartisan bicameral gang of legislators. Some data-driven journalism student should now plot the correlation between developer campaign contributions and this packet’s sponsors.

By now there’s a host of academic studies pointing out that building lots of market rate housing does nothing for those who need affordable housing: people like families, mobility challenged people, old folks, the working poor and other under-served groups. Trickle-down just doesn’t work to provide affordable housing, pure and simple.

Tim Redmond on San Francisco’s excellent 48hills.org spotlighted a typical analysis, a new study of housing pricing from the Federal Reserve Bank:

“New study by Fed economists directly contradicts Yimby narrative on housing prices

The study, also connected to the National Bureau of Economic Research, directly contradicts the fundamental economic thesis that has driven housing policy in the state for years: that development constraints have created high housing prices.”

Redmond’s article provides a good short summary of the lengthy NBER report, which would be worth a full read if you’re able to understand economicese.

The Mission Local site provides a good review of where all this is going by Joe Rivanno Barros:

‘Abundance,’ darling agenda of centrist Democrats, comes home to San Francisco

The piece is a comprehensive report on a City Arts and Lectures appearance last week by columnist Ezra Klein and his collaborator Derek Thompson, discussing with Michael Pollan the trendy cult’s origin story, a new book called, like the movement’s founding principle, “Abundance”:

“Michael Pollan wasted no time cutting to the heart of the matter: The top-selling recently released book “Abundance,” a 288-page manifesto on creating a “liberalism that builds,” may no longer be relevant.

“It’s almost like a sick parody of your book,” Pollan said of President Trump’s actions in D.C. — cutting a trail through the federal bureaucracy, firing tens of thousands of workers, cancelling the kinds of research grants the book seeks to reform.

“Abundance,” by journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, critiques inefficient bureaucracy and seeks a deregulatory scalpel; Trump and his pit bull Elon Musk have opted for a red-and-chrome chainsaw.”

My own longtime observation of and participation in leftish politics tends to see two camps of progressives. One can roughly be described as “you need more and I’ll help you get it”. The other can be rephrased as “I want more for me and I’ll do anything to get it.” That’s the Abundance doctrine espoused by Scott Weiner, Buffy Wicks and Jesse Arreguin as well as authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson,.

The Internet is currently rife with reviews of the book by that name and others which preach the gospel of abundance, a clickable list of sources which taken together provide a good picture of the theory behind Buffy Wick’s package of proposals. The many deregulation proposals are no surprise coming from Republicans, but Democrats should think twice before jumping on the abundance bandwagon. The law of unintended consequences could lead to irreparable environmental damage and further wealth disparity. 

When I was four years old my parents would sneak me into Shelley's Manhole to hear Milt Jackson's quintet or guitarist Bill Evans. Musicians were welcome at our house the next afternoon, Sunday, for a loose day of barbecue and low-key jamming where I learned my first chords and my first stories of Los Angeles' racism. More than one band lost a player driving through the wrong community trying to get to a gig while touring. A joint would typically be "found" in a clean car pulled over for no reason. The band would be forced to spend money bailing out a player, or finding a pick-up player to complete a date, and some of them, including Herb and Lorraine Geller, moved to Europe to find someplace receptive to jazz culture and respectful of musicians. 

My father used to say, "There's the law, and then there's what really happens." He told me while we washed the car one Saturday morning when I asked why we didn't have any bumper stickers like other people do, that the only bumper sticker one should ever have on one's car was "Support the local police." 

It took a whistleblower to expose Berkeley's horrifying "textgate," the scandal of racist texts revealing the downtown bicycle police patrol joking about their efforts to hit a quota of arrests of homeless people. Even getting documentation of the whistleblower's allegations was a struggle, such that the Police Accountability Board (PAB) produced a report last week suggesting some obvious reforms regarding data the Police Department has, but doesn't like to share. 

The current city council, with the notable exception of District 7's Cecelia Lunaparra, sidestepped April 15, 2025's opportunity to provide the board with the necessary tools to avoid future cover-ups and squarely address racism. The PAB's suggestions were watered down or erased. The council majority had not one word of substantive discussion about the racism casually embedded in the police department. And they were unmoved by passionate public comment calling for change. 

It took years for a scandal this overt and undeniable to carve even this far into the firmament of the Berkeley Police Department's rock solid perspective on police accountability, which has always been and remains that any implication of police wrongdoing is suspicious and probably the spawn of kneejerk prejudice against police by people who don't have clarity about police procedure or the courts or both. It will clearly take even more years for the Police Department to find leadership willing to admit that racism as casually traded between members of the bicycle patrol is unlikely to be unique to the department, and that the comic salute to the concept of police accountability, which passed not quite unanimously, was unlikely to create meaningful change. 

Those of us who are routinely targeted watched this municipal kabuki in the cold light of a national struggle with the tides of white supremacy. Our leadership is apparently just that thin-skinned and Just that willing to opt for a bit of theater over setting aside the hide-and-go-seek games over public documents in order to maintain a broad posture of disrespect for anything but a quick, cursory look at the fact that the Berkeley bicycle police patrol's racist, discriminatory behavior is not unique. And that we still don't have the leadership we need to address it.

Assassination Nation

How do we know that America is one of the world's leading gun-loving nations? Consider: four of our sitting presidents (nearly one-in-ten) have been killed by gun-wielding assassins. Abraham Lincoln (1865), James A. Garfield (1881), William McKinley (1901), and John F. Kennedy (1963) all died from an assassin's bullet. Ronald Reagan (1981) is the only president to survive an assassination attempt. 

According to Wikipedia, the list of presidents who were targets of assassination plots include: Andrew Jackson, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, Franklin G. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump. 

Assassination Motivation 

In recent months there have been two assassination attempts targeting Donald Trump. The odd thing here is that no one seems to have discovered—let alone publicized—the shooters' motivations. 

On July 13, 2024, at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump was nicked in the ear from a round fired by an AR-15-style rifle fired by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. Oddly, in coverage of the crime, no mention was made regarding Crooks' motivation. 

On September 15, 2024, Ryan Routh has been charged with the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, following a Sept. 15 incident at Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course. 

At his first court hearing, the prosecution presented a letter Routh had written detailing his assassination plans. But no motive was cited. In an October 2, 2024 story, Newsweek reported: "While a motive for the assassination attempt is yet to be determined, he was strongly critical of Trump's foreign policy decisions in the same note in which he described the failed assassination attempt." 

In a related note, a photograph of Routh (one that shows him with war-paint plastered on his cheeks) was taken during an interview in the Ukrainian capitol of Kiev. 

Pick of the Pics 

The recent "Hands Off" rallies (held in each of the 50 states) were enlivened by chants, speeches, drumming, posters, T-shirts and placards with political slogans and slanders ranging from the witty and pithy to the ribald and hard-boiled—a visual feast for photographers. 

So, too, the signs raised by the crowd gathered at Sproul Plaza for an April 17 rally to protest King Trump's authoritarian battle to steer the country's universities from a free-flowing democracy down the ditch to a full-blown autocracy serving the wishes of the nation's banks, corps, and oligarchs. 

One of the media savants at the UC rally was Bay Area photojournalist James Lerager whose lens captured images of the event that are now posted online at this link: 250417 UCB-Sproul Action_Photos-JLerager.jpg 

Robert Reich at April 17 UC Berkeley Rally 

 

Fashion Plates 

YYIYY
LEGONUT
OFRNDZ
SOOBS
THINQUE
9 PUNJAB
N12345R
M[star]MZILAs
H2O2C1 (Water to see one?)
LVTHTR (Love Theatre?)
H2O2C1 (Water to see one?) 

Bumper Snickers 

All Hail Sensitivity
Maybe Honking Can Help 

I'd Rather Be Honking
Keep Honking! I'm Listening to HONKING!
F--- autozone. I throw my used old batteries in the ocean 

I Brake for Tiny Guys (Pictures of a hummingbird, toad, worm and snail) 

Trump's Economic Plan Is … Tariffying 

Amid tariff chaos, Donald Trump assured us: “I know what the hell I’m doing.”  

Many Americans are skeptical. Consumer confidence has fallen ( https://apnews.com/article/consumer-confidence-inflation-fda8125b8b8f4929b1528046d842758f ), and Trump’s poll numbers continue to decay ( https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls-2058657 ). We don’t yet know what the tariffs’ outcome will be, but we do know that America’s image has been tarnished. And we are less safe than we were 90 days ago. 

Let’s consider our relationship to the world community: 

1.Israel: After 90 days of Trump 2.0, the United States’ strongest ally is Israel. Of all world leaders, Trump gets along the best with Bibi Netanyahu. Take a second to consider that. 

Trump and Netanyahu have formed a partnership where Israel gets to do what it wants in the Middle East. Israel is levelling the northern part of Gaza, creating a “buffer zone.” There’s been no formal announcement, but it appears that Israel intends to force all Palestinians out of Gaza. 

There’s no more talk of a “two-state” solution. It appears that after Israel has levelled Gaza it will annex the West Bank. Bye-bye Palestinian state. 

Within the US, Trump intends to suppress criticism of Israel. Any suggestion that Israel is not a humane regime is met with charges of “antisemitism.” Foreign students who criticize Israel are subject to deportation. Universities with anti-Israel protests have their federal grants revoked. 

This week, Trump and Netanyahu turned their focus to Iran, worried it will obtain a nuclear weapon. Trump has threatened Iran with war unless they give up their nuclear weapons program. 

2.North America: After 90 days of Trump, the US is isolated. We have no close allies other than Israel. It used to be that we could count on our neighbors: Canada and Mexico. However, tariff chaos has caused these relationships to sour. Trump’s threat to annex Canada – turn it into the 51^st state – has angered Canadians who now regard us as a deranged neighbor. 

3.Europe: Trump and J.D. Vance have been hostile to Europe, the EU, and NATO. Trump levied 25 percent tariffs on the EU before pausing them for 90 days. 

Trump does not respect the EU. He insists on negotiating an end to the Ukraine-Russia conflict without involving our European allies. 

4. Russia: Initially it appeared that Trump intended to form a strong relationship with Russian premier Putin. However, the Ukraine-Russia negotiations have not gone as smoothly as Trump intended. Recently, Russia signaled they are forging a stronger relationship with China. 

5. China: Trump invited Chinese premier Xi Jinping to his inauguration and boasted about their relationship. Since January 20^th, Trump’s attituded towards China has soured. This past week he levied tariffs on Chinese imports that average more than 100 percent. China responded by slapping reciprocal tariffs on US imports. This will particularly affect our imports of food and natural gas. ( https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/ar-AA1CO3El ) 

SUMMARY: “I know what the hell I’m doing” says Trump. However, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policies the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration had ever imposed on a “well-functioning economy”. ( https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/10/trump-tariffs-reaction-republicans-democrats? ) Rather than “fix” the economy, as he promised voters, Trump has broken it, sending us into recession. 

Trump doesn’t recognize the US economy is linked to our foreign policy. If other countries don’t like us, don’t trust us, they’re not going to visit the United States or buy our products. Donald Trump wants other countries to invest in the US: build factories here and pay for the privilege of doing business with us. But no one wants to do business with a jerk. 

Since Trump became president on January 20^th, he has managed to piss off all our allies – except for Israel. This has strained our traditional alliances: with our North American neighbors Canada and Mexico, with our European allies in NATO, and with Asian allies such as Australia, Japan, and South Korea. In less than ninety days, Trump has alienated these allies and burdened them with onerous tariffs. 

Trump has blown up the world order, as wells as the US economy. Trump doesn’t know what he is doing. 

Outrage is mounting after 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers were executed by Israeli forces in northern Rafah on March 23. Despite Israel’s initial claim that the convoy approached without warning lights, cellphone video—recorded by a now-dead paramedic—shows the ambulances had their lights on when troops opened fire. Bodies were later found in an unmarked mass grave alongside the ambulances, some with hands and feet bound, and gunshot wounds to the head and chest. Human rights attorney Diana Buttu called the massacre “the height of dehumanization.” This attack brings the death toll of medics killed by Israeli forces to over 400. The Israeli military, facing undeniable video evidence, now claims the grave was dug to protect bodies from wild animals—an explanation met with disbelief. 

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continue unabated. Over 100 children have been killed or injured daily in Gaza since Israel broke the March ceasefire. A journalist, Helmi al-Faqawi, was burned alive when Israel bombed a media tent near Nasser Hospital. Israel has now killed 211 journalists and continues targeting those bearing witness. 

While Prime Minister Netanyahu seeks more U.S. weapons and backing for ethnic cleansing, the world watches in silence. These are war crimes. Without accountability, Israel’s impunity—and the carnage—will continue. 

It’s time for the U.S. to stop enabling mass murder and enforce international law.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza—and the escalating brutality in the West Bank—defies words. Each day brings new horrors: airstrikes, starvation, and the massacre of a trapped civilian population. And yet, no global power appears willing—or able—to stop it. A few nations raise their voices, but they lack the influence to make a difference. The powerful remain deaf, blind, and mute. 

In Israel today, even saying the word “Palestine” can result in arrest, jail, or assassination. The country is sliding into authoritarianism and cruelty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government continues to supply weapons and diplomatic cover. In February, Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed, “We are eliminating terrorists.” But who are the terrorists? Israel’s relentless bombing and settler violence are creating more fighters, not fewer. What would any of us do if stripped of dignity, home, and hope? 

This is not about security—it’s about land theft and domination. 

Tens of thousands have been killed in Gaza, including countless women and children. The true toll may be far higher than reported. If all lives are equal, how can we remain silent—and complicit—in these massive crimes? 

The victims of past genocides, like the Holocaust victims, must be weeping in their graves. And history will not be kind to those who stood by and did nothing.

Insider Trading by Traitorous Insiders?
In the wild week of Wall Street's stock-market mayhem, the question haunts me: Did Donald Trump tip off his kids and colleagues that he was about to suspend his imposition of global tariffs? He would have had advance knowledge of the likelihood this action would trigger a potentially historic reversal of Wall Street stocks. This insider knowledge could generate massive fortunes when the bottom-heading stocks were liberated. 

So when — to the minute — did stocks begin to "recover" and, more importantly, did this reinvestment fury commence — minutes? hours? — before Trump's public announcement set off a reinvesting frenzy? It's hard to imagine that Trump could resist this opportunity to rig the Dow and Not share the info with Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and his coterie of loyal co-conspirators. 

Turns out I'm not the only one with suspicions. On April 11, Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated: "Donald Trump in a nutshell: doing everything he can to make the ultra-rich even richer. We need to find out if Trump's tariff chaos was used as cover for insider trading." 

The market surge added over $300 billion to the collective wealth of the world's top billionaires in a matter of hours, according to Bloomberg. Shortly before announcing the tariff pause, Trump posted to his social media platform that it is a "great time to buy" stocks, prompting accusations of market manipulation. 

Insider Trading? 

 

Tariiffs of the Penguin
 

Fashion Plates
Personalized license plates spotted about town:
SOOBS
2 MOXIES
CAPSLKN
MXDZX
THINQUE
ITISDOG
CATSOAP
BESEEN
XEQVW
KNOT8RY
9 PUNJAB
LUV2SK8 (Love to Skate)
LND ART (Loaned Art? 

Bumper Snickers
Mutant Freedom Now!
I'd Rather Be Biking
My Driving Scares Me Too!
Make America Green Again
When Does the Climate NOT Change?
I Believe in Climate Change Because I'm Not an Idiot
Don't Believe Anything Until It's Been Officially Denied
A Good Bumper Sticker Makes You Think 

Passman Passes
Arnie Passman, a friend, fellow word-slinger, and poet- provocateur, has departed to the Great Beyonder at the age of 88 and Bay Area freelance chronicler Bill Berkowttz has posted a fine memorial on Berkeleyside, which begins as follows: 

Remembering Arnie Passman, poet and punster whose classic book examined radio DJs’ influence on pop culture

A staff writer for Playboy and Scanlan’s Monthly and author of the 1971 book ‘The Deejays,’ Passman was active in Berkeley’s literary and performance scenes…. 

Arnie was heavily engaged in the Bay Area comedic community, serving as a publicist for The Committee, a California-based improvisational group. 

A lifelong devotee of world peace, Arnie organized annual pilgrimages to the Gandhi Memorial, an 8-foot-tall sculpture — located in the plaza southeast of the San Francisco Ferry Building — to celebrate the anniversary of the creation of the Peace Symbol. 

On June 15, 2021, days after Arnie turned 85, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín declared Arnie Passman Day in the city, honoring him for “speaking puns to power and advancing peace and justice through writing” and for being “a vital and unwavering voice of Berkeley culture, values, and wit” for over 60 years. 

The full remembrance can be read at the following link and here's a video of one of Armie's appearances on Stoney Burke's podcast. As Arnie (who was also a playwright) was prone to say in parting; 'Break a legacy." 

 

Late-night Episode Odes 

Two late-night comic commentators are in the habit of titling each night's episode with a topical pun or two (usually at D. Trump's expense). Here's a harvest of a recent run-down of monolog titles. 

Jimmy Kimmel:
Tanny Mae 

Quentin Tarifftino
Merrill Flinch
Dick & Tater
Down in the Trumps 

Fools Speed Ahead 

Stephen Colbert:
Social Insecurity
Bye-Bye Buy
Grant Theft Autocrats
Pause and Effect
Land of the Fee 

New Tariff in Town 

Super Callous Fascist Racist Sexist Nazi Potus 

 

Criticize the Empire; Go to Jail
It's a good thing that Sen. Bernie Sanders enjoys congressional protection when he feels compelled to speak out against injustice. Under the expanding Trumpist Regime, it is becoming increasingly risky to exercise one's First Amendment right to criticize US military support for the horrific civilian genocide of Palestinians (and humanitarian aid volunteers) in Gaza and the West Bank. 

Under the new rules, criticizing Netayahu's policy of ethnic cleansing can result in arrest by ICE, televised "perp-walks" by masked deputies, and deportation to a notorious foreign prison. 

Nonetheless, Sanders introduced a bill to halt US arms sales to Israel and condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions. During remarks on the Senate floor, Sanders called on the US to block the supply of bombs and dollars to be used to arm Netanyahu's bloody new offensive in Gaza. In Trump's universe such actions may place outspoken peace activists—in and out of public office—on a short-list for a one-way trip to Gitmo. 

 

"Hands Off," Walking Shoes On
The social-change organization MoveOn recently noted that studies of social movements worldwide revealed that "no government has maintained legitimacy and power after 3.5% of their population came together to vocalize their dissent against it at a peak event." This has come to be known as the "3.5% rule" for social revolution. 

MoveOn proceeds to note that the 2017 Women's March on Washington was the largest single-day demonstration in US history, calling forth 1% and 1.6% of the US population across hundreds of locations. Double or triple that scale would approach the 3.5% threshold." 

MoveOn's new mission: "engaging 3.5% of the US population in a massive protest to stop authoritarianism in America." Remember, MoveOn writes: "tyranny cannot prevail over people who refuse to succumb to it." 

Future Reading:
1. Bluesky post by L.A. Kauffman, April 5, 2025
2. "Booker makes a stand against Trump – and doesn’t stop for 25 hours," The Guardian, April 2, 2025
3. "We Are Living Through Moral Collapse. How Democrats Can Strike Back," Lucid, March 16, 2025
4. "Questions, Answers, and Some Cautionary Updates Regarding the 3.5% Rule," Harvard Kennedy School Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, April 2020
5. "Senator Cory Booker Literally Talked For An Entire Day, And These 15 Highlights From His Epic Speech Are Everything," BuzzFeed, April 3, 2025
Wizard of Aaahs: Randy Rainbow's "Defy Democracy" 

 

 

 

Jewish students at Columbia University took a bold stand on Wednesday, chaining themselves to campus gates in protest of the university’s role in the detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a former student now held by ICE in Louisiana. Khalil, a legal permanent U.S. resident, was arrested on March 8 at his university-owned apartment, and his green card was revoked. Protesters demanded transparency from Columbia’s administration, suspecting university trustees—possibly new President Claire Shipman—of providing Khalil’s information to the Department of Homeland Security.

Student protesters, including members of Jewish Voice for Peace, emphasized that their actions challenge the false narrative that anti-Zionist protests are antisemitic. As one Jewish student noted, “You cannot weaponize antisemitism to harm our friends and peers.” The protest also underscored a broader concern: Columbia’s crackdown on dissent, which has disproportionately targeted Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students.

Despite the rain and the threat of arrest, students continued their demonstration overnight. Columbia security and New York police forcibly removed them, cutting their chains. Yet their message remains clear: Columbia must be held accountable for endangering students and collaborating with government repression. The fight for Khalil’s release is not just about one student—it is about standing against the silencing of political activism on campus.

One of the most frustrating moments in sports is when a star player folds under pressure. In football this happens when a famous QB throws an interception at the end of the game, or an ace running back fumbles on what would have been the winning play. In baseball this happens when the star pitcher walks in the winning run. In basketball this happens when the team captain insists calls for the ball and then misses what would have been the winning shot. 

Donald Trump isn’t a star player, but to his base he has been a champion on a winning streak. Then, on April 2^nd, Trump choked: he announced his stupid tariff policy. Trump committed an epic unforced error that will dramatically change US politics. 

Trump had been President for 72 days and during this time done much to please his base. While he had not brought down inflation, he had blamed high prices on Joe Biden. Trump had fulfilled many of his “mass deportation” policies. And Trump, and his acolyte Elon Musk, had taken a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy. Trump had not brokered the end of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, but he appeared to have started an encouraging process. Trump has signed 109 executive orders. To his base, Trump seemed to be keeping his campaign promises. Then came April 2^nd and his tariffs speech. 

Although Trump talked about tariffs during his 2024 presidential campaign, it’s a safe bet that most of his base didn’t understand the consequences of what he was proposing. If Trump voters thought about tariffs at all, they probably assumed they would bring down prices. It will come as a shock to Trump’s base that, effective April 9^th, Trump tariffs will raise prices on most household items. The tariffs will be felt by all US households. 

On April 2^nd, Trump unveiled double-digit tariff rates on almost all US trading partners – with the notable exception of Russia. Trump claimed that each tariff rate was determined through a holistic consideration of both tariff and non-tariff trade barriers placed on the U.S. by each foreign country. However, the tariff rate placed on each country appears to have been calculated by taking the U.S. trade deficit with each country and dividing it by that country’s exports to the U.S., then halving that figure in certain cases to reflect what Trump described as “kind reciprocal tariffs.” The Trump administration created a unique measure. 

Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers wrote: “It’s now clear that the [Trump] Administration computed reciprocal tariffs without using tariff data. This is to economics what creationism is to biology, astrology is to astronomy, or RFK thought is to vaccine science. The Trump tariff policy makes little sense EVEN if you believe in protectionist mercantilist economics.” Trump took a course of action that will raise prices on most everything and did not have a solid case for doing this. 

Why did Trump raise tariffs? There are those who claim that Trump is “crafty” and instigated the tariffs as part of a complex scheme to negotiate favorable trade deals with our key trading partners. Perhaps this is true, but I favor an alternative explanation: Trump is irrational and, therefore, often influenced by whacko ideas.  

In Trump’s first presidential term he voiced whacko ideas – remember when he recommended injecting bleach as an antidote to the Coronavirus? – but during those four years, Trump was surrounded by experienced staff who kept him for acting out his most outrageous notions. In Trump 2.0, the seasoned staff members are gone, and Trump has leeway to act out his craziest impulses. We’ve seen this with immigration: recently, Trump signed an order using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as the legal basis for his deportation of alleged “Tren de Aragua” gang members. As a result, Trump sent 238 to El Salvador without giving them due process, 

That’s the bad news. The good news is that Donald Trump choked on his most important 2025 decision: tariffs. Instead of promoting reasonable action to bring down prices, Trump foisted a whacko idea on the US. Trump’s tariffs will raise prices – inflation will increase. Many economists predict that Trump’s tariffs will cripple the economy and push the US into recession. And, Trump cannot blame these actions on Joe Biden; Trump will own them, and “the Trump economy.” As conditions worsen, Trump’s base will get the message: Trump has not kept his central campaign promise to fix the economy. Trump’s base will turn on him and Trump’s power will wane. Trump’s iron grip on the Republican Congress will lessen. 

War with Iran: I hope I am wrong, but reliable reports suggest the US and Israel are planning an attack on Iran with the intent of destroying their capability to produce nuclear weapons. 

Most of the American public probably equates mentally ill people with homeless people, with prisoners in orange jumpsuits, or with "deranged" people getting into and out of a van and living in an institution. That is a stereotype, and it usually lacks factual basis. Mentally ill people often live troubled lives, but this doesn't mean we are less than regular people.

I am 60 years old, and I have lived with a psychiatric condition my entire adult life. To begin with, it is probably better than average that a man diagnosed with schizophrenia (and that's my initial diagnosis) can even make it to this age and not suffer from dementia or be on his last legs of living. According to some sources, life expectancy for a schizophrenic man is age 59.

Over the years of living within the outpatient mental health treatment systems, I have seen many people with similar disorders to mine drop like flies before they reach this point. I have not heard of schizophrenic men being able to live independently at this age, in some cases at any age. I have subsidized housing, and I collect Social Security and some SSI. Beyond that, it is up to me to fend for myself. I maintain contact with mental health vendors, who keep me medicated and who provide emotional support. I have some family, and they are loyal and caring.

I am married. However, I moved out of the home I shared with my wife of twenty-seven years, because at the time my judgment was badly impaired and I was following a set of delusional thoughts, AKA, a "delusional system". My prescriber didn't believe it was safe to raise my antipsychotics to the level I wanted. Yet, if I make dumb decisions that impact my life circumstances because I'm delusional, that's really not safe. The prescriber seemed to dismiss or not think of the concept that I could make poor decisions that could impact on the course of my life.

I am a semiprofessional writer. And I believe this means I have been published, and I can make a little bit of money at it, yet I can't do this for a living. Writing is a very, very competitive field, and everyone wants to be a writer. Yet, I am a writer, and I've had a good degree of success.

My credibility in the writing field may not be acknowledged beyond the local street papers for which I write almost every month. The editors of the street papers are familiar with me and know who I am. However, it could be hard to convince many editors that I create this material on my own. The presumption could be that someone is fixing up the writing or perhaps doing all of it and putting my name on it.

Not so.

I can't read minds and I can't be a fly on someone else's wall. Thus, I don't know whether the above notion is merely my imagination or whether there is some truth to it. I can tell you that becoming a writer has been quite therapeutic and has yielded a lot of mental clarity to me, and I've needed that clarity. When dealing with newspaper editors, you would think you're dealing with some of the most intelligent and most grounded people. And they are. And it has rubbed off on me.

As a 60-year-old "mentally ill" man, I note with much unhappiness, the disrespect is everywhere. Those who work in the treatment systems frequently don't regard us as equals. Medical doctors don't give the same level of care. In retail situations, such as picking up medications at a pharmacy, some pharmacy workers are not sure I can pay the copay, and they behave accordingly. Other pharmacy workers are sharp and are aware that I have intelligence.

I was a patient of a circulatory specialist, and I was being sold a pair of compression socks. The physician's assistant flipped out when I pulled a Mastercard out of my wallet.

In a previous living situation, a recent one, I would go out to my car to smoke, and a few of the many people driving by would hurl insults out the window of their pickup trucks, directed at me. Years ago, in a group therapy setting, the task at hand was to bake a cake for members to eat. The counselor did not give me credit for being able to bake a cake from a cake mix without supervision.

Society's agenda for mentally ill people is to keep us maintained and to prevent us from being a nuisance to the greater society. The "powers that be" don't want to see mentally ill people have money and power because they are afraid of the consequences of misuse.

But we deserve to have good things in our lives as does anyone. And we don't have that. We live in supervised and institutionalized situations. This is no fun.

In short, mentally ill people are an unacknowledged minority. Yet we lack the stance of self-righteous anger when disrespected. And we haven't organized nearly as much as other groups. I attribute this to the impairment of psychiatric conditions and the disabling effect of medications. 

 

Worth Noting:

Council returns from recess with Special Council meeting at 4 pm on Adoption of Cal Fire Map, Adoption of Fire code Amendments followed with regular meeting scheduled to start at 6 pm. 

 

Check Indivisible East Bay for events and rallies - https://indivisibleeb.org/ 

Check 50501 Fifty Protests Fifty States One Movement - https://www.fiftyfifty.one/events 

 

• Sunday, April 13, 2025
  • At 9 am the Sugar Sweetened Beverage Ad-Hoc Subcommittee Application Review meets in person
• Monday, April 14, 2025
  • At 2:30 pm the Agenda Committee meets in the hybrid format.
  • At 4:30 pm the City Council meets in closed session in the hybrid format
  • At 6:30 pm the Youth Commission in person
• Tuesday, April 15, 2025
  • At 4 pm City Council meets on Fire Code and Fire Map in the hybrid format.
  • At 6 pm is the regular City Council meeting with all items listed on consent.
• Wednesday, April 16, 2025
  • At 1:30 pm the Commission on Aging meets in person.
  • At 6 pm the Planning Commission meets in person.
  • At 6:30 pm the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets in person only in a conference room fully equipped for hybrid meetings (Cypress Room at 2180 Milvia)
  • At 7 pm the Commission on the Status of Women meets in person.
• Thursday, April17, 2025
  • From 11 am – 12:30 pm is the rally for Hands off Social Security in Oakland.
  • At 5:30 pm the Zero Waste Commission meets in person.
  • At 6:15 pm the Transportation and Infrastructure Commission meets in person.
  • At 6:30 pm the Design Review Committee meets in person.
  • At 6:30 pm Fair Campaign Practices Commission-Open Government Commission meets in the hybrid format.
  • From 9:30 am – 12 pm is Together Wee Play with the Story-Time Band for ages 4 and under.
  • From 4 pm – 5:30 pm is the free Garden and Cooking Class Series
• Friday, April 18, 2025
  • At 11 am the Civic Arts Commission Policy Subcommittee in person.
  • From 7 – 9 pm is a Flashlight Egg Hunt for 5^th to 8^th graders.
• Saturday, April 19, 2025
  • At 9 am is CERT Class Unit 7.
  • At 9:30 am is Spring Egg Hunt Extravaganza with prizes (fee $12 per participant) for ages 1 – 12
  • From 12 – 1:30 pm is Tesla Takedown at 4^th Street in Berkeley.
  • From 1 – 4 pm is Earth Day Shoreline Cleanup.

Check City website for meetings posted on short notice https://berkeleyca.gov 

If you are unable to attend a meeting in person and/or it is not offered in the hybrid or an accessible format, TO REQUEST A DISABILITY RELATED ACCOMMODATION(S) TO PARTICIPATE IN THE MEETING, including auxiliary aids or services, please contact the Disability Services specialist at 510-981-6418 (V) or 510-981-6347 at least 3 days before the meeting (the sooner the better). Thomas Gregory is the ADA Program Coordinator. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

 

BERKELEY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND CIVIC EVENTS 

 

Sunday, April 13, 2025 – Passover, Jewish Holiday 

 

SUGAR – SWEETENED BEVERAGE PRODUCT PANEL of EXPERTS Ad-Hoc Application Review Subcommittee at 9 am 

In-Person: at 1724 San Pablo 

AGENDA: 1. Review Healthy Berkeley applications received for the FY 2026/2027 Grant Cycle. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/sugar-sweetened-beverage-product-panel-experts 

 

Monday, April 14 2025  

 

AGENDA AND RULES COMMITTEE Meeting at 2:30 pm 

Members: Ishii, Humbert, Taplin alternate: Bartlett 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 6th Floor – Redwood Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1614796877 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (Toll Free)  

Meeting ID: 161 479 6877 

AGENDA: Public Comment on non-agenda and items 1 – 7. 1. Minutes, 2. Review and Approve -4/29/2025 -- draft agenda – use link or read full draft agenda below at the end of the list of city meetings, 3. Adjournment in Memory, 4. Council Worksessions, 5. Referrals for scheduling, 6. Land Use Calendar, Referred Items for Review: none Unscheduled 7. City Council Legislative Redesign. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-agenda-rules 

 

City Council Closed Session at 4:30 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 6th Floor – Redwood Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1610965055 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (Toll Free)  

Meeting ID: 161 096 5055 

AGENDA: Conference with Labor Negotiators, employee organizations: Berkeley Fire Fighters Association Local 1227 I.A.F.F., Berkeley Chief Fire Officers Association Local 1227 I.A.F.F., Berkeley Fire EMS Professionals Association, Berkeley Police Association, SEIU 1021 Community Services and Part-Time Recreation Activity Leaders, SEIU 1021 Maintenance anc Clerical, IBEW Local 1245, Public Employee Local 1, Unrepresented Employees, 2. Conference with Legal Counsel – Pending Litigation a. RealPage, Inc v. City of Berkeley Et al, No. 3:25-CV-034004-JSC. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas 

 

YOUTH COMMISSION at 6:30 pm 

In-Person: at 1730 Oregon 

AGENDA: 8. Guest Speaker Liza McNulty presentation on the Pier-Ferry project. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/youth-commission 

 

Tuesday, April 15, 2024 

 

CITY COUNCIL Special Meeting at 4 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1231 Addison, School District Board Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1617330038 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 161 733 0038 

AGENDA: adopt first readings 1. Adoption of CALFIRE Map and Additional Areas Designated as the City of Berkeley Fire Hazard Severity Area Zones, 2. Modification and Adoption of Berkeley Fire Code Local Amendments.  

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas 

 

CITY COUNCIL Regular Meeting at 6 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1231 Addison, School District Board Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1617330038 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 161 733 0038 

AGENDA: Use the link and choose the html option to review agenda items individually or pdf to see the entire packet as one document or go to the agenda listed at the end of the calendar. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas 

 

Wednesday, April 16, 2024 

 

COMMISSION on AGING at 1:30 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center 

AGENDA: Letter regarding the Implementation Measure FF funds and sidewalk funding 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/commission-aging 

 

COMMISSION on the STATUS of WOMEN at 7 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center 

AGENDA: 6. Presentation by Jasmina Viteskic, District Title IX Coordinator/Compliance Officer, with discussion and possible action on Creating a Safe and Supportive Environment: Title IX and Student Safety in BUSD, 8. Presentation by Carol Marasovic on Sexual HarassmentPrevention Training recommendation. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/commission-status-women 

 

HUMAN WELFARE and COMMUNITY ACTION COMMISSION at 6:30 pm 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 1^st Floor – Cypress Room 

AGENDA: 5. Community Services Block Grant Community Action Plan and Community Needs Assessment memo, 6. Review City of Berkeley funded agency program and financial reports a. Family Violence Law Center program and financial reports. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/human-welfare-and-community-action-commission 

 

PLANNING COMMISSION at 6 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center 

AGENDA: 10. B State Law and Technical Edits and proposed amendments to Title 23. Recommendations listed cover BMC 23.106.030 - Floor Area, Gross, 23.202.0030 - Additional Permit Requirements Residential, 23.2004.0030 - Additional Permit Requirements Commercial Districts 23.206.030 – Additional Permit Requirements Manufacturing Districts, 23.302.020 – General Use Regulations, 23.304.0700 – Unenclosed Accessory structures in Residential Districts, 23.326.030 Demolition Residential, 23.326.050 Demolition Accessory Buildings, 23.326.070 Demolition of Non-Residential Buildings 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/planning-commission 

 

Thursday, April 17, 2024 

 

DESIGN REVIEW COMMITTEE (DRC) at 6:30 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center, Gooseberry Room 

AGENDA: 2942 College (near Ashby) - DRC222-0015 - Preliminary Design Review to demolish a 1-story (20 feet), 2,273 sq ft commercial building and construct 2-story (28 feet) 1,839 sq ft mixed used building at front of the lot with food service on the ground floor and two dwelling units on the upper floor and 2-story (28 feet) 2,968 sq ft residential building at the rear of the lot with 4 dwelling units. 

2680 Bancroft (near college) – DRC2024-0014 – Preliminary Design Review – todemolish the existing parking lot and construct a multi-family residential 8-story, 79 unit building including 8 very low income units at 2660 Bancroft (APN 55-1871-20 and convert an existing City Landmark hotel into offices at 2680 Bancroft. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/design-review-committee 

 

FAIR CAMPAIGN PRACTICES COMMISSION (FCPC) & OPEN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION (OGC) at 6:30 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 1^st Floor – Cypress Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1614055306 900 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 

Meeting ID: 161 405 536 

AGENDA: FCPC: 8. Report from Negotiating Subcommittee: Yes on Measure CC / No on Measure BB, 9. Public financing matching funds disbursement process, 10. Disbursements to Mark Humbert for Council 2022, 11. Review and possible revision of Procedures for the FCPC. 

OGC: 13. Publicizing commission work and vacancies, 14. Referral of non-filing quarterly lobbying reports: Yuri Sadiki-Torres, 15. Lobbyist Registration Act processes and administration, 16. Progress in providing remote access to Commission and Board meetings. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/fair-campaign-practices-commission 

 

TRANSPORTATION and INFRASTRUCTURE COMMISSION at 6:15 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center, Aspen Room 

AGENDA: 1. Daniel Ellsberg street naming recommendation renaming Kittredge between Milvia and Fulton (this street includes the Berkeley Central Library). 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/transportation-and-infrastructure-commission 

 

ZERO WASTE COMMISSION at 5:30 pm 

In-Person: at 1326 Allston Way, Corporation Yard, Ratcliff Building, Willow Room 

AGENDA: 6:15 pm 1. Presentation on Bottle Bills by Susan Collins, President of the Container Recycling Institute, 6:45 pm Presentation by the Ecology Center about their work. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/zero-waste-commission 

 

TOGETHER WEE PLAY with the STORY-TIME BAND from 9:30 am – 12 pm 

Location: 2800 Park, Frances Albrier Community Center 

Use link for event details, for ages 4 and under. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/together-wee-play-story-time-band-9 

 

FREE GARDENING and COOKING CLASS SERIES from 4 pm – 5:30 pm 

Location: at 1640 Stuart 

Use link for details and to register 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/free-gardening-and-cooking-class-series-2 

 

INDIVISIBLE HANDS OFF OUR SOCIAL SECURITY FROM 11 AM – 12:30 PM 

LOCATION: at 360 22^nd Street at Webster on the sidewalks around the Social Security Office 

Noticed by Indivisible East Bay 

https://indivisibleeb.org/ 

 

Friday, April 18, 2024 

 

CIVIC ARTS COMMISSION Policy Subcommittee at 11 am 

Check later for location and agenda 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/civic-arts-commission 

 

FLASHLIGHT EGG HUNT from 7 – 9 pm 

Location 1730 Oregon 

Use link for details, prizes and to pre-register for grades 5 through 8. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/flashlight-egg-hunt-0 

 

Saturday, April 19, 2024 

 

INDIVISIBLE EAST BAY TESLA TAKEDOWN from 12 – 1:30 pm 

Location: on sidewalk in front of Tesla dealership at 1731 Fourth Street between Virginia and Delaware. 

https://indivisibleeb.org/event/tesla-takedown-berkeley-april-19th-event/ 

 

COMMUNITY EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM (CERT) Unit 7: Light Search and Rescue at 9 am 

Location: 997 Cedar, Fire Department Training Center 

Use link for details and to register 

https://berkeleyca.gov/cert-classes-unit-7-april-19-2025 

 

SPRING EGG HUNT EXTRAVAGANZA at 9:30 am 

Location: 11 Spinnaker Way 

Use link for details and to pre-register, activities for ages 1 – 12, fee $12/participant 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/spring-egg-hunt-extravaganza 

 

3^rd SATURDAY EARTH DAY SHORELINE CLEANUP from 1 – 4 pm 

Location: at 160 University 

Use link for details and to register 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/earth-day-shoreline-cleanup-0 

 

Sunday, April 20, 2024 – Easter Sunday, Christian Holiday, Passover, Jewish Holiday ends 

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

++++++ AGENDA & RULES COMMITTEE, Monday, April 14, 2024 +++++++++++ 

 

AGENDA AND RULES COMMITTEE Meeting at 2:30 pm,  

Members: Ishii, Humbert, Taplin alternate: Bartlett 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 6th Floor – Redwood Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1614796877 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (Toll Free)  

Meeting ID: 161 479 6877 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-agenda-rules 

 

DRAFT AGENDA for City Council Regular 6 pm Meeting on April 29, 2025 

 

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

CEREMONIAL MATTERS: PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE 

CITY MANAGER COMMENTS 

PUBLIC COMMENTS on NON-AGENDA MATTERS 

 

AGENDA on CONSENT: 

1. Numainville, City Clerk – Minutes
2. Oyekanmi, Finance – Formal Bid Solicitations
3. Sprague, Fire – Contract $200,000 with Public Consulting Group (PCG)for Professional Services related to Ground Emergency Medical Transport (GEMT), Quality Assurance Fee (QAF), Intergovernmental Transfer (IGT), Public Provider Ground Emergency Transport (PP-GEMT) using General Services Agency’s (GSA) contract No. 47QTCA20D004Y 4/1/2025 – 3/31/2027 with two 2 year extensions to 3/31/2032 not to exceed $300,000 in total
4. Walker, HR – Amend Berkeley Police Association (BPA) MOU Section 19.5 Administrative leave for Captains increase from 50 hours to 60 hours
5. Fong, IT - Amend Contract No. 31900270 add $2,786,057 total $8,197,733 with Dell Computers for hardware, software and related services utilizing County of Riverside Agreement 808445 11/1/2019 – 10/31/2027
6. Fong, IT – New Contract $171,323 with Tyler Technologies Inc. for Open Data Portal’s (ODP) Hosting Services, thru 6/30/2027
7. Aguilar, Office of Director PAB – Process for Adjusting PAB Stipend following AAO#1 Carryover Approval $12,000 in FY 2024 carryover funds for PAB Committee + Training Stipends Adjustments
8. Klein, Planning – Amend Contract No. 32200208 add $100,000 total $1,600,000 with West Coast Code Consultants
9. Klein, Planning – Amend Contract No. 32200207 add $100,000 total $1,600,000 with Telesis for Plan Checking Services
10. Davis, Public Works – Amend PO add $75,000 total $505,000 with Braun Northwest Inc. for two 2025 F-450 North Star Engine Remount of Ambulance Bodies to New Chassis
11. Davis, Public Works – Final Map of Tract 8717: 805 Jones Street
12. Davis Public Works – Contract $12,323,848 with Bay cities Paving & Grading, Inc. for 2025 Street Maintenance and Rehabilitation Project
13. Davis, Public Works – Contract $4,208,200 includes 10% contingency for South Berkeley Bikeway and Bus Stop Improvements Projects
14. Davis, Public Works – 2 Contracts $150,000 each with M&A Towing and City Towing for towing services
15. Taplin – Budget Referral $300,000 for Afterschool Program Expansion to FY 2026 Mid-Biennial Budget Update
16. Taplin – Budget Referral $250,000 for F and G Dock Deck Replacement
17. Bartlett – Berkeley Juneteenth Festival: Relinquishment of Council Office Budget Funds
18. Authors Tregub, O’Keefe, Humbert, cosponsor Ishii – Budget Referral $7,000/year total $14,000 for Annual Holocaust Remembrance Day for FY 2026/2027
19. Authors Tregub, O’Keefe, co-sponsors Ishii, Taplin – Bay Area Robotics Education Sustainability Alliance: Relinquishment of Council Office Budget Funds for 2025 Berkeley High Robotics Team’s East Bay Regional Robotics Competition
20. O’Keefe – Letter in support of SB 456 Muralist Exemption from having to obtain a contractor’s license
21. Blackaby – Budget Referral $200,000 for Deportation Defense Legal and Education Funds
22. Lunnaparra - $25,000 to June 2025 Mid-Biennial Budget Process to Partially Cover Street Spirit’s Operational and Programming Costs
23. Lunaparra – Resolution supporting State and Regional Funding for Bay Area Public Transit
24. Lunaparra – Resolution Supporting a State Budget Request for CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program and Endorsing AB 936 supplemental benefits program
25. Humbert – Defer $150,000 for Round Park from Nov 2024 FY 2025 AAO#1

AGENDA on ACTION: 

26. Gilman, HHCS – Submission of the 2025-2030 Consolidated Plan and Program Year 2025 Annual Action Plan – allocation of federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) Emergency Solutions Grant, HOME Investment Partnership Grant (measure includes defining percentage to administration
27. Davis, Public Works – Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program on 1500 block of Virginia
28. Klein, Planning – General Plan Amendments relating Middle Housing
29. Harrison – Policy Committee recommendation, negative – Opposition to Police Brutality and Use of Force on Nonviolent Protestors
30. Taplin – Referral to CM feasibility analysis and request for recommendation for Berkeley Green New Deal Workforce Development to create pathways to green jobs and accelerate the transition to a fossil-free local economy
31. Taplin – Refer to City Manager to assess potential 2026 revenue ballot measures to support capital improvements to fire department facilities
32. Tregub, co-sponsor Lunaparra – Budget Referral $400,000 - Oxford for All IV bicycle facility on the east side of Oxford Street and Fulton Street between Bancroft and Hearst,
33. Blackaby, co-sponsor – Add ADA expertise to the Safe Streets Citizen Oversight Committee
34. Blackaby, co-sponsors Taplin, O’Keefe, Humbert – Resolution to request amend AB-645 (2023-2024) to add Berkeley to California Automated Speed Enforcement PilotBerkeley

INFORMATION REPORTS: 

35. 2025 Police Accountability Board Work Plan
36. Wong, Auditor – Restaurant Inspections Audit Report Wins National Recognition

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

++++++ CITY COUNCIL AGENDA for Tuesday, April 15, 2025+++++++++++ 

 

CITY COUNCIL Regular 6 pm Meeting on April 15, 2025 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1231 Addison, School District Board Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1617330038 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 161 733 0038 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas 

 

FINAL AGENDA for City Council Regular 6 pm Meeting on April 15, 2025 

 

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

CEREMONIAL MATTERS: PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE 

CITY MANAGER COMMENTS 

PUBLIC COMMENTS on NON-AGENDA MATTERS 

PUBLIC COMMENT by EMPLOYEE UNIONS 

 

AGENDA on CONSENT: 

1. Klein, Planning – 2^nd reading Building Emission Saving Ordinance (BESO)
2. Klein, Planning – 2^nd reading – Establishment of M-RD Zoning District
3. Numainville, City Clerk, Police Accountability Board appointment of new member
4. Radu, City Manager’s Office - Contract $200,000 with The Regents of the University of California on behalf of its San Francisco Campus to evaluate the success of its Encampment Resolution Funding Round 3 encampment resolution strategy, 1/1/2025 – 12/31/2025
5. Oyekanmi, Finance - Formal Bid Solicitations total $15,794,774 includes FY 26 and FY 27 Healthy Berkeley community Funding $2,294,774, On-Call Electrical City Facilities $700,000, On-Call Structural Services City Facilities $500,000, Sanitary Sewer & Storm Drain Rehabilitation Union Pacific Railroad Corridor $8,800,000, Elevator Maintenance $350,000, On-Call HVAC $300,000, Indoor/Outdoor painting $100,000, Public Works Supervisor Training $150,000, Fire/Life Safety Equipment Monitoring $350,000, On-Call Electrical Street Lighting $1,100,000, On-Call Equitable Community Engagement Services $1,000,000, Public art for the Santa Fe Trackbed to Park Conversion $150,000
6. Gilman, HHCS - Amend Contract No. 32200086 add $50,001 total $100,000 through 6/30/2028 with Crisis Services of Alameda County for Mental Health Crisis Line
7. Gilman, HHCS – Amend Contract No. 32200191 add $500,000 total $1,000,000 (add 2 years) through 6/30/2025 with Options Recovery for substance Use Disorder services
8. Fong, IT – Amend Contract No. 32000177 add $61,098 total $194,475 with NextRequest PRA Software for software hosting, implementation, maintenance and related services for a Public Records Act Response Software System 7/1/2019 – 6/30/2027
9. Ferris, Parks – Purchase Order $116,495 with Multiquip Inc. for a Portable Emergency Power Generator for Berkeley Tuolumne Family Group amended $116766
10. Aguilar, PAB – Proclamation of the City of Berkeley Designating April 17 as Police Accountability Day
11. a. Aguilar, PAB – Berkeley Police Department (BPD) Texting Offences: Independent Investigation by Police Accountability Board (PAB) Recommendations 1. Council affirm PAB access to records, 2. Full and meaningful sworn officer accountability, 3. Direct City Manager with BPD and Director of Police Accountability to fulfill vision of CA Penal Code Section 832.7 (b)(1) allowing transparency in sustained cases of officer racism or other discriminatory conduct or expression, 4. Call on CA State legislators to extend prohibition on arrest quotas. (Policy Committee negative recommendation)

b. Blackaby – Resolution Affirming support for BPD, PAB and Director Police Accountability in response to Downtown Task Force Texting Offenses Investigation 

12. Ishii, co-sponsors Blackaby, Lunaparra, Taplin – Sanctuary City Ordinance
13. Kesarwani – Budget Referral $150,000 for Ohlone Greenway Safety Improvements Project Unfunded Balance
14. Kesarwani, co-sponsor Ishii – Establish Rules and Limits When Community-Based Organizations Receive Funding without Procurement to Promote Transparency, Fairness, and Stewardship of Public Funds
15. Bartlett – Resolution approving expenditure of funds to Celebracion Cultural Sylvia Mendez (Spring Cultural Celebration)
16. Tregub – Resolution Commemorating April 24, 2025 as Berkeley Holocaust Remembrance Day
17. Authors Tregub, O’Keefe, Humbert, co-sponsor Ishii – Relinquishment of Council Office Budget Funds to Virtual Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025
18. Tregub, co-sponsors Blackaby, Lunaparra, Taplin – Support CA SB 42 Political Reform Act public campaign financing, remove prohibition of public financing of campaigns
19. O’Keefe, co-sponsor Humbert – Budget referral $80,000 for Thousand Oaks Park Playground Update
20. Hahn – Policy Committee negative recommendation for Study: Sabbatical Leave for City of Berkeley Employees,
21. Humbert – Relinquishment of Council Office Budget Funds for Music in Elmwood Festival

AGENDA on ACTION: none 

INFORMATION REPORTS: 

22. Gilman, HHCS – Age-Friendly Berkeley Update
23. Klein, Planning – Climate Action Plan
24. Klein, Planning Notice of Decision: 21 Mosswood Road
25. Klein, Planning Notice of Decision: 2138 Cedar
26. Klein, Planning Notice of Decision: 2231 McKinley
27. Klein, Planning Notice of Decision: 2425 Durant
28. Environment and Climate Commission Workplan
29. PAB – Former PAB member recognition
30. Wong, Auditor – City Auditor’s Office 2024 Peer Review Results

 

DISPOSITION of ITEMS REMOVED from DRAFT AGENDA: 

• Referred to Council Health, Life Enrichment, Equity & Community Committee - O’Keefe, co-sponsors Ishii, Blackaby, Lunaparra – alternate Housing Options for People experiencing homelessness, staff to identify a list of potential locations of City properties for the purpose of establishing alternative housing options
• Gilman, HHCS – Response to Referral “Care first, Jails Last” pulled

 

+++++++++++++++++++ Land Use - Work Sessions - Special Meetings +++++++++++++++ 

 

LAND USE CALENDAR 

• 2274 Shattuck (UA theater Project) 4/22/2025
• 1048 Keith (single family house) 5/6/2025
• 2500-2512 San Pablo / 1094-1098 Dwight 5/20/2025
• 1950-1998 Shattuck 6/3/2025
• 2138 Kittredge 6/3/2025
• 2655 Shattuck 7/22/2025

NOD – NOTICES OF DECISION 

• 0/1117 Virginia (construct residential building) expires 4/15/2025
• 2700 Ninth Street – Berkeley Humane expires 4/15/2025

WORK SESSIONS & SPECIAL MEETINGS: 

• April 15 (4 pm) Adoption of Cal Fire Map, Adoption of Fire code Amendments
• April 22 (6 pm) City Council ZAB Appeal Hearing for UA Theater Project
• April 28 (5 pm) Peace and Justice Ceasefire Resolution
• April 29 (4 pm) Presentation on City’s Unfunded Liabilities
• May 6 (4 pm) Brown Act Training
• May 13 (new date) (6 pm) Evacuation Study and Response Times

UNSCHEDULED WORK SESSIONS & SPECIAL MEETINGS 

Council Referral: Social Housing previously listed as Mixed-Income Housing (June or July) 

Comprehensive Summary of Homeless Response 

FUTURE INFORMATION REPORTS 

1. Reimagining Public Safety Update
2. Affordable Housing Fee Feasibility Study
3. Berkeley Fire Department Annual Report

PREVIOUSLY LISTED WORKSESSIONS and SPECIAL MEETINGS REMOVED FROM LIST 

• Fire Department Standards of Coverage & Community Risk Assessment
• Dispatch Needs Assessment Presentation
• Presentation on Homelessness/Re-Housing/Thousand-Person Plan (TBD regular agenda) Feasibility Study Follow Up Session
• Greenhouse Gas Inventory / Climate Action Plan Update

 

++++ How to get on or off the Activist’s Calendar and Activist’s Diary email list ++++++++ 

 

Kelly Hammargren’s summary on what happened the preceding week is posted on the What Happened page at: https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/what-happened.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/ 

 

The Activist’s Calendar of meetings is posted on the What’s Ahead page at: https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html 

 

If you would like to receive the Activist’s Calendar as soon as it is completed send an email to: kellyhammargren@gmail.com.If you want to receive the Activist’s Diary send an email to kellyhammargren@gmail.com. If you wish to stop receiving the weekly calendar of city meetings please forward the email you received to- kellyhammargren@gmail.com -with the request to be removed from the email list. 

 

g 

 

 

Worth Noting: 

April 28, 2025 at 5 pm City Council will hold a special meeting to consider the Ceasefire Resolution passed by the Peace and Justice Commission last September 30, 2024. The April 28 meeting on the Ceasefire Resolution is scheduled, but not yet posted under City Council April meetings. You can still comment. 

April 29, 2025 the last item on the City Council agenda is the General Plan Amendments for Middle Housing.  

To comment email council@berkeleyca.gov 

 

There is no guarantee that if we attend rallies, stand up to be counted, resist the authoritarian takeover of this country in every nonviolent way we can, we will win, but if we stay home and don't resist we are guaranteed to lose. We have work to do. Gene Sharp's Dictatorship to Democracy is an excellent guide. https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/resource/from-dictatorship-to-democracy-a-conceptual-framework-for-liberation/ 

There are local rallies every week including, the every Saturday rally at the Berkeley Tesla dealership. Use the websites to look for more. 

• Check Indivisible East Bay for events and rallies - https://indivisibleeb.org/
• Check 50501 Fifty Protests Fifty States One Movement - https://www.fiftyfifty.one/events

Check City website for meetings posted on short notice https://berkeleyca.gov 

 

If you are unable to attend a meeting in person and/or it is not offered in the hybrid or an accessible format, TO REQUEST A DISABILITY RELATED ACCOMMODATION(S) to PARTICIPATE in a MEETING, including auxiliary aids or services, please contact the Disability Services specialist at 510-981-6418 (V) or 510-981-6347 at least 3 days before the meeting (the sooner the better). Thomas Gregory is the ADA Program Coordinator. 

• Monday, April 21, 2025
  • At 2:30 pm the Agenda Committee meets in the hybrid format.
• Tuesday, April 22, 2025
  • At 6 pm is the special City Council meeting on the appeal of Appeal 2274 Shattuck Avenue – (the United Artists movie theater site)
• Wednesday, April 23, 2025
  • At 3:45 pm Health, Life Enrichment, Equity & Community meets in the hybrid format.
  • At 6 pm the Civic Arts Commission meets in person.
  • At 6 pm the Environment and Climate Commission meets in person
  • At 6:30 pm the Police Accountability Board meets in the hybrid format.
• Thursday, April 24, 2025
  • At 10 am the Budget & Finance Committee meets in the hybrid format and begins the mid-cycle budget for FY 2026.
  • From 4 – 5:30 pm is class #3 in the free gardening and cooking series.
  • At 7 pm the Mental Health Commission meets in person.
  • At 7 pm the Zoning Adjustment Board meets in the hybrid format
  • Health Commission meeting is cancelled.
• Saturday, April 26, 2025
  • The Berkeley Bay Festival starts at 11 am.
  • From 11 am – 12 pm is disaster preparedness class.
  • At 11 am is the Go Green Mobility Fair in El Cerrito.
  • From 12 – 1:30 pm is the weekly Berkeley Tesla Takedown Rally.

• Sunday, April 27, 2025
  • From 1 – 2:30 pm is the Indivisible East Bay all member meeting on zoom.

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

 

BERKELEY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND CIVIC EVENTS 

 

Sunday, April 20, 2025 – Easter Sunday, Passover ends at sundown 

 

Monday, April 21, 2025 

 

AGENDA AND RULES COMMITTEE Meeting at 2:30 pm 

Members: Ishii, Humbert, Taplin alternate: Bartlett 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 6th Floor – Redwood Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1612873811 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (Toll Free)  

Meeting ID: 161 287 3811 

AGENDA: Public Comment on non-agenda and items 1 – 7. 1. Minutes, 2. Review and Approve 5-6-2025 -- draft agenda – use link or read full draft agenda below at the end of the list of city meetings, 3. Adjournment in Memory, 4. Council Worksessions, 5. Referrals for scheduling, 6. Land Use Calendar, Referred Items for Review: 7. City Council Legislative Redesign, Unscheduled Items: none 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-agenda-rules 

 

Tuesday, April 22, 2025 

 

CITY COUNCIL Special Meeting at 6 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1231 Addison St. in the School District Board Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1604791189 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 160 479 1189 

AGENDA: one agenda item 1. ZAB Appeal 2274 Shattuck Avenue – (the United Artists movie theater site) Use Permit #ZP2023-0079 - Appeal of the approval of a 17-story (183 ft plus 5-foot parapet), 214,032 sq ft, mixed-use residential building with 227 dwelling units including 23 very low-income density bonus qualifying units and one ADA parking space. This is a SB 330 project (which limits council actions). Staff recommends dismiss appeal and approve the project. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/city-council-agendas 

 

Wednesday, April 23, 2025 

 

HEALTH, LIFE ENRICHMENT, EQUITY & COMMUNITY at 3:45 pm 

Members: Bartlett, Tregub, O’Keefe, alternate: Taplin 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 6^th Floor, Redwood Room 

Videoconference:  

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 161 920 2556 

AGENDA: 2. O’Keefe, co-sponsors Ishii, Blackaby, Lunaparra – Alternative Housing Options for People Experiencing Homelessness to identify a list of potential locations of City properties for the purpose of establishing alternative housing options, 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-health-life-enrichment-equity-community 

 

CIVIC ARTS COMMISSION at 6 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Russell, Tarea Hall Pittman South Branch Library 

AGENDA: 6. Presentations, Discussion & Action Items a) add $41,685 to Festival Grants to bring total to $200,000 in FY 2026, b) Work Plan, c) Civic Arts Grants-funded Community Festivals Quarterly Report, d) Public Art on Private Development Quarterly Report. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/civic-arts-commission 

 

DISASTER and FIRE SAFETY COMMISSION at 7 pm 

In-Person: at 997 Cedar 

AGENDA: 4. Fire Weather Outreach, 5. Work Plan Groups, 6. Review of Work Group Plans, 7. Letter Regarding AB 612 – directs local governments to consult with local fire depaartments when making road improvements to ensure improvements do not negatively impact emergency response times. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/disaster-and-fire-safety-commission 

 

ENVIRONMENT and CLIMATE COMMISSION at 6 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center 

AGENDA: 7. Elect Commissioner to serve on Measure FF Safe Streets Oversight Committee. 8. 2025 Climate Action and Resilience Update, 9. Work Plan subcommittee updates. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/environment-and-climate-commission 

 

POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD (PAB) at 6:30 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1900 Addison, 3^rd floor 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89174589069 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 

Meeting ID: 891 7458 9069 

AGENDA: 4. Public Comment on agenda and non-agenda items, 10. Discussion and Action Items a. BPD’s Mutual Aid Agreements with other law enforcement agencies, b. ODPA’s presentation of Policy Complaint #19 concerning the detention and release of inebriated individuals, c. Pending PAB request to City stakeholders, d. Recap, discussion and action on next steps i. Berkeley Police Department Texting Offences, ii. Fair and Impartial Policing Implementation Report, e. BPD’s 2024 Police Equipment and Community Safety Ordinance Report, 11. Public Comment, 12. Closed Session. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/police-accountability-board 

 

Thursday, April 24, 2025 

 

BUDGET & FINANCE COMMITTEE at 10 am 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 1^st Floor, Cypress Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1618234365 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 161 823 4365 

AGENDA: 2. Friedrichsen, Budget Manager– FY 2026 Mid-Biennial Budget Update, 3. Taplin, co-sponsors Ishii, Humbert – Referral to City Manager Potential 2026 revenue ballot measures to support capital improvements to fire department facilities and return recommendations to council. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-budget-finance 

 

MENTAL HEALTH COMMISSION at 7 pm 

In-Person: at 1901 Hearst, North Berkeley Senior Center, Poppy Room 

AGENDA: 3. Request Council recommend local participants in local based innovative behavioral health innovations, 4. Review, discuss and actions regarding updated By-Laws for Berkeley Behavioral Health Commission, 5. Review, discuss and action application for appointment to Berkeley Behavioral health commission, 7. Interview and vote for new applicant Ian Hunt, 8. Interview and vote for new applicant – Patrician Fontana-Narell. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/mental-health-commission 

 

COMMUNITY HEALTH COMMISSION at 6:30 pm - cancelled 

 

ZONING ADJUSTMENT BOARD (ZAB) at 7 pm 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1231 Addison St. in the School District Board Room 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83646064175 

Teleconference: 1-669-2900-6833 

Meeting ID: 836 4606 4175 

AGENDA: one project 2. 1627 Jaynes street – new public hearing – Use Permit #ZP2024-0129 – to demolish 1,476 sq ft, 2-story 3-bedroom, single family dwelling and construct 2,234 sq ft 2-story (27 ft 6 in, 5-bedroom, single family dwelling on a 4,684 sq ft lot, proposed project improves rea and side (west) non-conforming setbacks by moving new dwelling in a more centralized location on the lot. 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/zoning-adjustments-board 

 

FREE GARDENING and COOKING CLASS SERIES from 4 pm – 5:30 pm 

Location: at 1640 Stuart 

Use link for details and to register 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/free-gardening-and-cooking-class-series-3 

 

Friday, April 25, 2025 - no city meetings, events found 

 

Saturday, April 26, 2025 

 

Berkeley TESLA TAKEDOWN RALLY 12 – 1:30 PM 

Every Saturday at 4^th street midway between Delaware and Virginia 

 

BERKELEY BAY FESTIVAL AT 11 AM  

Use link for details and to register 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/berkeley-bay-festival 

 

SIX CRITICAL STEPS TO DISASTER PREPAREDNESS from 11 am – 12 pm 

Use link for details and to register 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/emergency-preparedness-class-six-critical-steps-disaster-preparedness-04-26-2025 

 

GO GREEN! Mobility Fair at 11 am 

Location: at 515 Richmond St, El Cerrito 

Use link for details 

https://berkeleyca.gov/community-recreation/events/go-green-mobility-fair 

 

Sunday, April 27, 2025 

 

INDIVISIBLE EAST BAY ALL MEMBERS MEETING from 1 – 2:30 pm 

Use link to sign up for ZOOM meeting (even months on ZOOM) 

https://mobilize.us/s/ACcqEW 

https://indivisibleeb.org/event/ieb-all-members-meeting-zoom-2/ 

 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

++++++ AGENDA & RULES COMMITTEE, Monday, April 21, 2025 +++++++++++ 

 

AGENDA AND RULES COMMITTEE Meeting at 2:30 pm 

Members: Ishii, Humbert, Taplin alternate: Bartlett 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 2180 Milvia, 6th Floor – Redwood Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1612873811 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (Toll Free)  

Meeting ID: 161 287 3811 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-agenda-rules 

 

DRAFT AGENDA for City Council Regular 6 pm Meeting on May 6, 2025, 2025 

 

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

CEREMONIAL MATTERS: PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE 

CITY MANAGER COMMENTS 

PUBLIC COMMENTS on NON-AGENDA MATTERS 

 

AGENDA on CONSENT: 

1. Sprague, Fire – 2^nd reading – Adoption of CALFIRE Map and Additional Areas Designated as the City of Berkeley Fire Hazard Severity Zones
2. Hollander, Economic Development – Re-Establishment of the Berkeley Tourism Business Improvement District (BTBID)
3. Sprague, Fire – Contract: Adopt a Resolution authorizing the City Manager to contract with Diablo Fire Safe Council (DFSC) to serve as the fiscal sponsore for donations that support home hardening work in Berkeley, particularly in its Fire Hazard Severity Zones for a term of five years.
4. Walker, HR – Amend Contract No. 32400192 add $108,884.79 with GovernmentJobs.com (dba NEOGOV) for online dta management services and extend from 5/16/2025 to May 15, 2028
5. Ferris, Parks – Reject all bids and re-scope and re-bid the work associated with South Cove West Lot Repaving Project
6. Klein, Planning – Amend Contract No. 32200042 with WCG for updates to the BESO Programs’s Salesforce Software System
7. Davis, Public Works – Amend Contract No. 117441-1 add $375,574.42 total $1,625,574.42 with Chrisp Company for Painting Red Curbs to Enhance Compliance with California’s Daylighting Law (AB 413)

AGENDA on ACTION: 

8. Sprague, Fire – 2^nd reading – Modification and Adoption of Berkeley Fire Code Local Amendments
9. Klein, Planning - ZAB Appeal: 1048 Keith Avenue, Use Permit ZP2024-0014 – to demolish 2,760 sq ft single-family dwelling and construct a 2-story (25 ft tall, 3,600 sq ft single family dwelling including building setback from 20 ft to 15 feet, 2 unenclosed off-street parking spaces within the front setback, the construction of a trellis within the front setback, and the installation of a fence and retaining wall along the lot line.
10. a. Commission on the Status of Women – Notice, tacking and enforcement of CA SB 1343 sexual harassment prevention training for Berkeley private, public and non-profit employers and employee with more than 5 employees, b. White, CM office – Companion Report – take no action on Commission Recommendation – City is already implementing and meeting the commission recommendations for City Employees, enforcement of non-City businesses is covered by the State of California’s Civil Rights Department and not within the City’s jurisdiction to enforce.

 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

++++++ CITY COUNCIL AGENDA for Tuesday, April 29, 2025+++++++++++ 

 

CITY COUNCIL Regular 6 pm Meeting on April 29, 2025 

Hybrid Meeting 

In-Person: at 1231 Addison, School District Board Room 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1613068832 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (toll free)  

Meeting ID: 161 306 8832 

https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/city-council/council-committees/policy-committee-agenda-rules 

 

FINAL AGENDA for City Council Regular 6 pm Meeting on April 29, 2025 

 

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

CEREMONIAL MATTERS: PLEDGE of ALLEGIANCE 

CITY MANAGER COMMENTS 

PUBLIC COMMENTS on NON-AGENDA MATTERS 

PUBLIC COMMENT by EMPLOYEE UNIONS 

 

AGENDA on CONSENT: 

1. Numainville, City Clerk – Minutes
2. Oyekanmi, Finance – Formal Bid Solicitations $1,850,000, Zero Waste $850,000, Mar-Coastal Conservancy Marina Operations/Maint Capital Improvements $1,000,000
3. Sprague, Fire – Contract $200,000 with Public Consulting Group (PCG)for Professional Services related to Ground Emergency Medical Transport (GEMT), Quality Assurance Fee (QAF), Intergovernmental Transfer (IGT), Public Provider Ground Emergency Transport (PP-GEMT) using General Services Agency’s (GSA) contract No. 47QTCA20D004Y 4/1/2025 – 3/31/2027 with two 2 year extensions to 3/31/2032 not to exceed $300,000 in total
4. Walker, HR – Amend Berkeley Police Association (BPA) MOU Section 19.5 Administrative leave for Captains increase from 50 hours to 60 hours
5. Fong, IT - Amend Contract No. 31900270 add $2,786,057 total $8,197,733 with Dell Computers for hardware, software and related services utilizing County of Riverside Agreement 808445 11/1/2019 – 10/31/2027
6. Fong, IT – New Contract $171,323 with Tyler Technologies Inc. for Open Data Portal’s (ODP) Hosting Services, thru 6/30/2027
7. Aguilar, Office of Director PAB – Process for Adjusting PAB Stipend following AAO#1 Carryover Approval $12,000 in FY 2024 carryover funds for PAB Committee + Training Stipends Adjustments
8. Klein, Planning – Amend Contract No. 32200208 add $100,000 total $1,600,000 with West Coast Code Consultants
9. Klein, Planning – Amend Contract No. 32200207 add $100,000 total $1,600,000 with Telesis for Plan Checking Services
10. Davis, Public Works – Amend PO add $75,000 total $505,000 with Braun Northwest Inc. for two 2025 F-450 North Star Engine Remount of Ambulance Bodies to New Chassis
11. Davis, Public Works – Final Map of Tract 8717: 805 Jones Street
12. Davis Public Works – Contract $12,323,848 with Bay cities Paving & Grading, Inc. for 2025 Street Maintenance and Rehabilitation Project
13. Davis, Public Works – Contract $4,208,200 includes 10% contingency for South Berkeley Bikeway and Bus Stop Improvements Projects
14. Davis, Public Works – 2 Contracts $150,000 each with M&A Towing and City Towing for towing services
15. Taplin – Budget Referral $300,000 for Afterschool Program Expansion to FY 2026 Mid-Biennial Budget Update
16. Taplin – Budget Referral $250,000 for F and G Dock Deck Replacement
17. Bartlett – Berkeley Juneteenth Festival: Relinquishment of Council Office Budget Funds
18. Authors Tregub, O’Keefe, co-sponsors Ishii, Taplin – Bay Area Robotics Education Sustainability Alliance: Relinquishment of Council Office Budget Funds for 2025 Berkeley High Robotics Team’s East Bay Regional Robotics Competition
19. Harrison – Policy Committee recommendation, negative – Opposition to Police Brutality and Use of Force on Nonviolent Protestors
20. O’Keefe – Letter in support of SB 456 Muralist Exemption from having to obtain a contractor’s license
21. Blackaby – Budget Referral $200,000 for Deportation Defense Legal and Education Funds
22. Blackaby, co-sponsor – Add ADA expertise to the Safe Streets Citizen Oversight Committee Lunnaparra - $25,000 to June 2025 Mid-Biennial Budget Process to Partially Cover Street Spirit’s Operational and Programming Costs
23. Blackaby, co-sponsors Taplin, O’Keefe, Humbert – Resolution to request amend AB-645 (2023-2024) to add Berkeley to California Automated Speed Enforcement Pilot Berkeley
24. Lunaparra – Refer $25,000 to the June 2025 Mid-Year Bienial Budget Process to Partially Cover Street Spirit’s Operational and Programming Costs
25. Lunaparra – Resolution supporting State and Regional Funding for Bay Area Public Transit
26. Lunaparra – Resolution Supporting a State Budget Request for CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable EBT Program and Endorsing AB 936 supplemental benefits program
27. Humbert – Defer $150,000 for Round Park from Nov 2024 FY 2025 AAO#1

AGENDA on ACTION: 

28. Gilman, HHCS – Submission of the 2025-2030 Consolidated Plan and Program Year 2025 Annual Action Plan – allocation of federal Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) Emergency Solutions Grant, HOME Investment Partnership Grant (measure includes defining percentage to administration
29. Davis, Public Works – Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program on 1500 block of Virginia
30. Klein, Planning – General Plan Amendments relating Middle Housing

INFORMATION REPORTS: 

31. 2025 Police Accountability Board Work Plan
32. Wong, Auditor – Restaurant Inspections Audit Report Wins National Recognition

 

DISPOSITION of ITEMS REMOVED from DRAFT AGENDA: 

• Referred to Land Use, Housing & Economic Development - Taplin – Referral to CM feasibility analysis and request for recommendation for Berkeley Green New Deal Workforce Development to create pathways to green jobs and accelerate the transition to a fossil-free local economy
• Referred to Budget and Finance Committee - Taplin – Refer to City Manager to assess potential 2026 revenue ballot measures to support capital improvements to fire department facilities
• Referred to Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment and Sustainability Committee (FITES) - Tregub, co-sponsor Lunaparra – Budget Referral $400,000 - Oxford for All IV bicycle facility on the east side of Oxford Street and Fulton Street between Bancroft and Hearst,

 

+++++++++++++++++++ Land Use - Work Sessions - Special Meetings +++++++++++++++ 

 

LAND USE CALENDAR 

• 2274 Shattuck (UA theater Project) 4/22/2025
• 1048 Keith (single family house) 5/6/2025
• 2500-2512 San Pablo / 1094-1098 Dwight 5/20/2025
• 2500-12 San Pablo / 1094-96 Dwight Way 5/20/2025
• 1950-1998 Shattuck 6/3/2025
• 2138 Kittredge TBD 6/3/2025
• 2655 Shattuck TBD 7/22/2025
• 2425 Durant – Laura Tull Property (landmark designation) TBD

WORK SESSIONS & SPECIAL MEETINGS: 

• April 22 (6 pm) City Council ZAB Appeal Hearing for UA Theater Project
• April 28 (5 pm) Peace and Justice Ceasefire Resolution
• May 5 (4 pm) Brown Act Training
• May 13 (new date) (6 pm) Evacuation Study and Response Times
• May 20 (new date and time)(4:30 pm) Presentation on City’s Unfunded Liabilities

UNSCHEDULED WORK SESSIONS & SPECIAL MEETINGS 

Council Referral: Social Housing previously listed as Mixed-Income Housing (June or July) 

FUTURE INFORMATION REPORTS 

1. Reimagining Public Safety Update
2. Affordable Housing Fee Feasibility Study
3. Berkeley Fire Department Annual Report
4. Greenhouse Gas Inventory / Climate Action Plan Update

PREVIOUSLY LISTED WORKSESSIONS and SPECIAL MEETINGS REMOVED FROM LIST 

• Fire Department Standards of Coverage & Community Risk Assessment
• Dispatch Needs Assessment Presentation
• Presentation on Homelessness/Re-Housing/Thousand-Person Plan (TBD regular agenda)

Feasibility Study Follow Up Session 

 

++++ How to get on or off the Activist’s Calendar and Activist’s Diary email list ++++++++ 

 

Kelly Hammargren’s summary on what happened the preceding week is posted on the What Happened page at: https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/what-happened.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/ 

 

The Activist’s Calendar of meetings is posted on the What’s Ahead page at: https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html 

 

If you would like to receive the Activist’s Calendar as soon as it is completed send an email to: kellyhammargren@gmail.com.If you want to receive the Activist’s Diary send an email to kellyhammargren@gmail.com. If you wish to stop receiving the weekly calendar of city meetings please forward the email you received to- kellyhammargren@gmail.com -with the request to be removed from the email list.