Features

Letters to the Editor

Friday May 27, 2005

CITY SERVICES TO UC 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wish somebody—the Daily Planet maybe—could tell readers the following: 

How many dollars is the City of Berkeley spending to provide sewer and fire service to UC, over and above whatever fees UC pays to the city. In other words, what is the total subsidy? 

What is the law on providing these services? Is the city required by any law to provide sewer and fire services below cost? 

If so, it seems the city doesn’t have much negotiating clout. 

If not, it seems the city has powerful negotiating clout—in which case, why don’t city officials set a date by which UC pays its fair share, or has its service cut off? That’s what happens to regular taxpayers if they don’t pay their bills. 

This is not a rhetorical question. It’s a serious question. Really—why don’t they? 

If the city won’t tell us, maybe the Daily Planet can. 

Russ Mitchell 

 

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HOUSING AUTHORITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to the city website, “The Berkeley Housing Authority is responsible for carrying out the Housing Assistance Voucher and Public Housing Programs for low income Berkeley families. The Housing Authority is composed of the elected City Council and two tenant members of the Housing Authority. Tenant members are appointed to the authority by the council for two-year terms. One tenant member must be 62 years of age or older.” 

Apparently one or two councilmembers are unaware of this duality structure of the BHA—Section 8 (including some project-based) and public housing. It appears that for some time and yet again, the BHA has been lacking crucial tenant representation. As administrator of both Berkeley’s Section 8 and public housing, this is especially crucial. The City Council and mayor should fill this vacancy expeditiously by appointing an appropriately representative and capable person, someone who, among other things, will insist on timely delivery of meeting agenda and who will not audibly value meetings for their brevity. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

Former BHA member 

 

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PROBLEM OR SOLUTION? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Most Americans distrust news media and for good reason. It’s not only because individuals are carelessness or deceitful but over and over again we’re shown professionally produced film clips with voice-over by non-inquisitive journalists who subtly promote American superiority and our noble intentions. The situation is, therefore, not limited to headlined booboos committed by CBS (Dan Rather) or Newsweek (Michael Isakoff), nor to the Pentagon’s self-serving deceits (Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman) and scapegoating (detainee abuse).  

Sometimes the media’s bias is bold as when pundits and panderers praised the election in Iraq not for its product but for its process. Thus, we were expected to see the process as the birth of a “democratic” state and encouraged to hope that no matter who got elected our soldiers could think about coming home. 

Media prejudice also fosters confusion, as when our man in Afghanistan, president Karsai, gets referred to as a partner and also a major recipient of our largess; in other words the USA is both his equal and his patron.  

More often the media’s spin is subtle. Attempting to salvage something of value from Laura Bush’s superbly staged goodwill tour of the Middle East where ninety percent of the people hate our guts and many showed it, CBS concluded: “The U.S. may still have some image-building to do…”  

Indeed, if the mess we’re in was caused by a flawed image then the mainstream media is the solution. Alas, behind the image there is substance—violence, destruction, death and maiming—and for that the mainstream media is part of the problem. 

Marvin Chachere  

 

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SODA FOUNTAINS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Whenever you print an article regarding Ozzie’s drug store soda fountain it seems that you always seem to need to mention that it is the “last Bay Area example of a once ubiquitous institution.” 

This is not true. I believe you owe an apology to Mr. James Cohen, a pharmacist who owns the Medicine Chest Pharmacy on B Street in Hayward. It contains a ‘50s-style soda fountain. 

Marilyn Ann Pasqual  

Hayward 

 

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BIKE TO WORK DAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Somebody please tell Jim Doherty (Letters, May 24-26) that Bike to Work Day was definitely not called on account of rain. I’m not sure if Mayor Bates made it to the noon ride from City Hall—actually, I heard he didn’t—but he was out riding his bike around 8 a.m. I was one of the volunteers at  

the Telegraph and Russell energizer station and he stopped by and talked with us for a bit. Besides the mayor we saw quite a few people at that corner for the two hours we were there. When we opened at 7 a.m. it was pretty sloppy and uninviting and I was worried that the event would be a bust, but by 9 a.m. it was clearing and bike riders were becoming more and more numerous—in fact, we had trouble getting away at 9, we were too busy to shut the  

station down! 

David Coolidge 

 

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MORE ON BIKE TO WORK DAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to Jim Doherty’s letter: We’re sorry you missed the annual Bike to Work Day even—it was held on May 19 this year, not May 20 as you stated in your letter. You can find brief coverage of the event on the city’s website. As the site will tell you, the event went forward successfully despite early morning showers, and we had a great time supporting approximately 80 cyclists who visited the city’s energizer station. As you’ll see, Mayor Bates did participate in the event. The event was organized by the city’s Office of Transportation—special thanks to Tully’s, Uncommon Grounds, Omafiets and the Bicycle Friendly Berkeley Coalition for donations; and thanks to all our volunteers and visitors for a great event! 

You can also read much more about bicycling and Bike to Work Day in Berkeley and throughout the Bay Area at http://bicycling.511.org. 

Matt Nichols 

Principal Planner 

City of Berkeley Office of Transportation 

 

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DEATH OF DEMOCRACY? 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

All the hints are that the City Council has done the dirty and approved the settlement agreement over the UC lawsuit behind closed doors, without ever releasing the terms of the settlement, in clear violation of the Brown Act, even after it was clearly explained to them (by me) why it was a violation of the Brown Act.  

To briefly review that reason, under Government Code Section 54956.9, the only justification for a closed session meeting to confer with attorney over pending litigation is that “discussion in open session concerning those matters would prejudice the position of the local agency in the litigation.” Concerning the reporting of settlement offers and settlement negotiations by the city attorney to the City Council, those matters cannot, by their very nature, “prejudice the position of the local agency in the litigation.” The reason is that settlement offers and settlement negotiations are strictly inadmissible under Evidence Code Sections 1152 and 1154 to prove either the validity or invalidity of a claim. Therefore, the confidentiality agreement was unlawful under the Brown Act. (The city attorney had stated to the City Council and to the public that the reason for the confidentiality agreement was to prevent the settlement negotiations from being used against the city in litigation.)  

Because the confidentiality agreement was unlawful under the Brown Act, it was prejudicial to the public interest, and because it was prejudicial to the public interest, the City Council had every right and obligation to unilaterally rescind it under Civil Code Section 1689(b)(6). Instead, the City Council chose to flout the law and flout the principle of democracy embodied in the law.  

It is therefore clear that the City Council is no longer operating under the principles of democracy. It has become what Herbert Marcuse called a one-dimensional societal structure, able to shut out any challenge to its autocratic rule. It accepts blindly bad legal advice from the city attorney and supporting legal staff, and that bad advice directs it and empowers it to completely exclude any other legal information, no matter how valid. Democratic debate concerning the law is strictly precluded. The “little people,” i.e. the citizenry, can have their opinions, but any real knowledge of their rights under the law is presumed to be absent and hence completely disregarded when asserted. 

My friends, it is time to test the law and the principles of democracy.  

Peter J. Mutnick 

 

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YOUTH VOTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This past Tuesday night, Berkeley City Councilmember Gordon Wozniak expressed his support for youth empowerment by voting against the proposal that would have taken a step towards allowing youth to vote. Not wanting to treat 16 year-olds as “second class citizens,” he did not support giving them the right to vote in only city elections, but rather supported giving them no voting rights at all. 

It’s ironic how some councilmembers used their democratic right to vote to deny others that same democratic right. Why is it that when something is proposed to benefit youth, many people, namely adults, rally up against it? In the audience of the City Council meeting were three elderly people who applauded the council’s decision and asked them to repeat it for “those confused kids.” 

Members of the Berkeley High School Chapter of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA-Berkeley) went to speak during public comment at the council meeting on Tuesday and, despite our call for the vote, the proposal fell one vote short of passing. On behalf of the members of NYRA-Berkeley and myself, I’d like to send our love to councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Darryl Moore, Dona Spring, and Max Anderson for supporting the proposal. We’d also like to thank Mayor Tom Bates, councilmembers Linda Maio, and Laurie Capitelli for keeping an open mind about the issue. 

I’d also like to note that Councilmember Betty Olds, in her patronizing equivocation, told the teenagers in the crowd that she thought we should have the right to vote, because we were exceptional, whereas she doesn’t believe all 16 year-olds are competent enough to vote. Neither are all adults, but what’s there to stop them from voting? 

Robert Reynolds 

NYRA-Berkeley Founder 

 

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EMERGENCY SERVICES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We oppose the evisceration of the Office of Emergency Services, which is the city entity that plans and responds to major disasters—from the next earthquake on the Hayward Fault to the next hills fire to chemical spills to bombings to flooding. While the OES manager, who was slated to be completely deleted, will be replaced with a uniformed Fire Department employee, the job still only demands 20 percent of that employee’s time—8 hours a week. This is criminally insufficient and threatens all of our lives. Keeping the inadequate status quo of 1.2 workers (1.2 FTE) to prepare residents, businesses, and government for the next disaster means more avoidable deaths, more avoidable dismemberments, and more avoidable property damage. 

Restoring the low-level analyst position cut in last year’s budget bloodletting, even for one year, means dozens, perhaps hundreds, of residents and business owners will be able to save themselves and their neighbors from disaster’s devastation. We ask the City Council to change the penny-wise and pound-foolish approach of the current OES budget proposal and restore meaningful disaster training. 

Howard Cook, Disaster Council 

Ed Gold, Chair Commission on Disability 

Eileen Hughes, former Vice-Chair and former member of the Disaster  

Council 

Stephanie May, Easy Does It Disability Assistance Board Member 

Karl Reeh, Chair Disaster Council 

Jesse Townley, Vice-Chair Disaster Council 

 

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OPPORTUNITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Readers of the Daily Planet should be aware of an opportunity that will be available this summer to women who might otherwise be in danger of “falling through the cracks” (as those of you who Really Count like to put it,) as well as women in general. 

If you have never been taught the basic plumbing, electrical, locksmithing, and emergency preparedness skills necessary to acquiring a position as an apartment manager, if you are unsure as to the means by which you would schedule and work with contractors in such a position, if you are unsure as to the specifics of landlord/tenant law and in need of training in this area, and if you have ever wanted the free or reduced rent available to those in apartment manager positions, this six-session course, which begins on June 7, will provide you with everything you need to qualify for an apartment manager position—including confidence. 

The course fee is $25-$250, sliding scale, based on need. Those who complete the two Tuesday and two Thursday evening classes (6- 9:30 p.m.) as well as the two 9 a.m.- 3 p.m. Saturday sessions, will have earned two certificates—one showing the aforementioned skills taught in the first five sessions, and a second certifying that the student has completed a day-long seminar on the final day, presented by Sentinel Fair Housing. 

The course, titled “Apartment Building Management for Women,” is offered at the Building Education Center at 812 Page St. in West Berkeley, and is taught by Naomi Friedman, a licensed plumber and one of the world’s greatest teachers. Naomi provides hands-on instruction in all repair skills necessary to an apartment manager, as well as one-on-one criticism of each student’s work. Her philosophy is “There are no stupid questions.” 

Anyone serious about taking this opportunity should contact the Building Education Center at 525-7610 or www.bldgeductr.org. 

If any landlord has a tenant whose character suits her to be an apartment manager, but who may lack a few of the requisite skills, this would be a wonderful course to recommend to such a person. 

Chadidjah McFall