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Reform possible, even on Credit Union Board 

Thank you for your coverage of the recent board of directors election for the Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union. Two of the three candidates running on the “Save Our Credit Union” slate were elected: Jackie de Bose and Naomi Rose. We had to work within the available structures, including the need to personally gather about 150 signatures per candidate, but as a result of our determination and vision, we were able to achieve the first level of our goals. 

For the Daily Planet reader who is already a member of the CCFCU, we see this as a very heartening sign, and we encourage you to become involved in your own way. Our election to the board proves that the system does work, if you use it. 

Our platform was based on reforming financial procedures and democratizing the communications process between board directors, members and staff, as well as holding to the cooperative vision. The work had begun, but is not over. As the saying goes “I will tell you no lies, I will claim no easy victories. The struggle continues.” We were initially contacted, along with running mate IfeTayo Bonner-Payne, by CCFCU Director Carole Kennerly because of questionable financial procedures. Since then, these have been substantiated by the latest report of the National Credit Union Association (NCUA) Examiner. 

You will be hearing from us in the CCFCU quarterly newsletter, which is sent to all members and available in the lobby of the Credit Union, as well. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at 510-540-1076 (Jackie de Bose) or 510-923-1363 (Naomi Rose). 

Naomi Rose 

Director-elect, Cooperative Center 

Federal Credit Union Board 

Article not accurate on park’s early history 

Dan Greenman’s comments in his article, “Colorful history to People’s Park,” on page 3 of your July 11 issue, misrepresents the early history of the park. He says that the University initially purchased this block in 1957, before bulldozing it. In fact, however, the University exercised eminent domain to condemn the entire block, and then bulldozed it. Later, in court, the University admitted that it did not have any specific purpose in mind for the property when it condemned it, which made the University’s action a violation of state law. Of course by then an entire block of homes had been destroyed. 

It seems plain that the time has come for the city to purchase People’s Park in order to assure its future as a park. The University’s incessant history of bad faith in this matter, as in so many others, makes this the more pressing. 

Jim Powell 

MacArthur Fellow 

People’s Park bought with innocent blood 

If the University of California plans to keep the People’s Park restroom clean, then I’m delighted; it’s certainly more than the City of Berkeley has done in 10 years. But raise money to buy the park? With all due respect to the fund-raisers, for some of us the park has been bought and paid for in blood. 

Carol Denney 

Berkeley 

Absence of proof not proof of absence 

In commenting on the recent report on tritium at LBNL, Shelly Rosenblum of the EPA was quoted (Daily Planet, July 11) as being pleased that there was “no evidence of immediate damage” from the radioactive water and steam released in the Berkeley hills. Yet the same report goes on to criticize the very methods used to gather such evidence. The number of radioactivity monitoring sites is “well below average” while the measuring computer programs were rendered “inaccurate.” The late great Carl Sagan was fond of the aphorism: “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.” That a scientist in Rosenblum’s position should ignore scientific reasoning shakes our faith in the EPA. 

A. C. Shen 

Berkeley 

DAHRT project seems weapons-related 

Regarding the front page article of your July 6 issue headed “LBNL unaffected by UC-BO dispute,” I would like to respond. 

I quote from your article: 

“’We’re not a weapons lab,’ said Lynn Yarris, speaking for LBNL. ‘We’re not involved in these security issues.’ 

“The University of California manages three contracts for the U.S. Department of Energy – one at Los Alamos, one at Livermore and a third in Berkeley. ‘Each contract is separate,’ Yarris said.” 

Now, I would like to quote from “Why Are We Still Researching Nuclear Weapons?” by the late Lillian Nurmela (expert on nuclear issues, long time worker with Western States Legal Foundation, and member of East Bay Women for Peace): 

“The University of California at Berkeley (LBNL) in collaboration with the DOE weapons lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico, is working on the Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility (DAHRT). The DAHRT is basically an X-ray machine with two arms at right angles that will take very fast moving pictures of the explosion of plutonium pits. Plutonium pits are the core of nuclear weapons, and plutonium is the most deadly and longest live (over 200,000 years) material in the world. 

“The DOE plans to spend more than $1 billion on expanded facilities producing plutonium pits.” 

Dorothy Vance 

Berkeley 

Higher speeds are risky to all pedestrians 

As a pedestrian safety advocate, I tell everyone who will listen about the fact that on average, a 20 mph pedestrian/car collision will result in pedestrian death less than 10 percent of the time, while a 30 mph pedestrian/car collision will result in pedestrian death more than 50 percent of the time.  

The logic of the traffic engineer, that speed limits should be raised on Claremont, because most people are speeding anyway, is similar to the logic of the professor who raises all her students’ grades because everyone failed the final exam. It is the logic of giving up because you are not able to produce the desired results. 

For the professor to then go on to claim that the student’ level of understanding has been increased as a result of the grade curve would be ludicrous. The traffic engineer’s claim that safety or “traffic calming” is promoted by raining the speed limit is equally ludicrous. 

Thanks to the engineer, we can all press down a little harder on the gas pedal as wee speed our way down the mini-highway we call Claremont, between the exit ramp and the Hills or U.C. Berkeley. We won’t worry too much about neighborhood safety since the faster we go, the more we are promoting pedestrian safety. 

Meanwhile, the neighbors who voted for the speed limit increase and the traffic engineer (who all, no doubt, graduated from that same professor’s class) can all sleep soundly, knowing that they got an “A” in neighborhood traffic calming. 

Zac Wald, Executive Director, BayPeds,  

The Bay Area Pedestrian Education Group 

Enforcement is key to Claremont safety 

While it is difficult to improve on Betty Schwendinger’s reasoned response (Perspective, July 8) to Jason Meggs’ wide-ranging divisive attack on everyone that doesn’t see the infinite wisdom of Jason’s elusive dreams of Heaven on Earth if we would only change the lane configuration on Claremont, there is a change that has occurred in Jason’s vision that is worth mentioning and an important area of agreement. In prior visions, Jason has used Valencia Street in San Francisco as an example of how wonderful Claremont would be if Berkeley did as Jason dreamed. In actual interviews with 12 businesses on Valencia Street produced the following comments; that while they originally supported re-striping, 11 believed resulting conditions were very bad and the 12th said it was not working because of lack of police enforcement. They said accidents and congestion are now worse and the non-reported and near misses are higher than before. Apparently when reality conflicts with your vision, you just ignore reality.  

The strange thing is the area of agreement. Instead of dividing the community by attacking everyone, citizens, councilmembers and the police, why not strive for further increases in traffic enforcement? Jason makes the clear issue that Berkeley needs more traffic officers. Berkeley should make that a spending priority so that safety for all of Berkeley’s residents is improved. Human safety should be an area of universal agreement and efforts to provide for only a select portion of citizens will always be divisive.  

John Cecil and Dean Metzger 

Berkeley