Opinion

A little bird dropped off at the Daily Planet office a document entitled “Survey on Economic Development in Berkeley—Preliminary Materials,” dated April 9. It is described as “proposed categories and question [sic] for an economic development survey,” to be converted by a professional survey company into the appropriate format to reach 400 potential Berkeley voters. It purports to be an attempt “to discover how Berkeley residents feel about a variety of public policy challenges confronting the city in spring, 2006.” -more-

Traditional summer school isn’t working. -more-

OREGON STEET -more-

My limited experience in Oakland is that police officers are mismanaged and poorly trained. The problems of mismanagement and lack of accountability affecting officers extends well beyond their ranks and into city, county and state government. It’s not ex citing, but fostering basic, functioning systems is what is needed for our schools, police, transit, DMV among other services. -more-

Since taking office, the Bush administration has waged what amounts to a war on science. On issues ranging from climate change to contraception to AIDS prevention, policies based on sound science have routinely been cast aside in favor of policies that fa vor the economic interests of corporate contributors or the ideology of right wing supporters. -more-

BERKELEY BOWL WEST -more-

While Ed Church and the South Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation claim that on Dec. 13 the City Council authorized them to organize a task force to make recommendations to the council regarding development of the west parking lot of the Ashby BART station (“Development Corp. Seeks Task Force,” March 24), in fact the council did no such thing. Neither the resolution passed that night nor the Caltrans grant application it endorsed says anything about a task force. The cover memo from Planning Department Director Dan Marks to the City Council said that the SBNDC suggested that Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmember Max Anderson appoint a task force, but in its discussions the council rejected that proposal, and took no action to endorse any of several proposed alternatives. -more-

At a March 15 EIR Scoping Meeting, Oakland City Planning Commissioner Michael Lighty described the recently unveiled plans for yet another transit village—this one at the MacArthur BART station—as “radical.” He wasn’t being strictly dismissive, defending developments at BART stations as “logical.” But even he allowed that this project with “signature” twin towers, one 20 stories, the other 22, abutting Hwy. 24—was a bold move by BART, the City of Oakland redevelopment agency, and a private development company headed by Shea Homes. -more-

Although we live in a dense urban environment, I think we all support conservation. Fortunately, our predecessors did as well. They’ve given us the East Bay Regional Parks—90,000 acres of natural habitat laced with miles of creeks. And here in Berkeley we have access to natural creeks in many public parks and on the UC campus. But these are urban creeks flowing through urban neighborhoods and must be viewed differently from those in natural preserves. -more-

It was a shame to once again read in the Daily Planet an inaccurate and one-sided account of the proposed revision of the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (“Preservationists Vow to Take Landmarks Law to Voters,” April 11).    -more-