redistricting! its mysteries are deep
a casual perspective may not see
what purpose drives a boundary's quiet creep
embracing some reluctant addressee
sadly not an "ever fixed mark"
but wild much like the ocean's changing shore
unfair or fair? they cry from dawn to dark
they cry until there's no one left to bore
the wrangling and contention never ends
the finger pointing name calling and worse
the court case pitting neighbors against friends
where both winners and losers feel the curse
redistricting! our lives are hard enough
without this stupid gerrymander stuff

The odds were good, but the outcome looks bad.

Yesterday the Court proceedings over redistricting in Berkeley took place before Judge Evelio Grillo at the Oakland Post Office chambers of Alameda Superior Court. Five people representing disenfranchised Berkeley voters, including two disaffected Councilmembers, one alternative redistricting plan proponent representing himself, one attorney representing both Councilmember Worthington and the proponent of the non–Bates machine student plan together, and one attorney representing a Berkeley voter who supported the referendum faced the one lonely attorney representing the city, Margaret Prinzing, from high-powered and Demo-party-structure–connected Remcho, Johansen & Purcell. (The City Clerk also sent a legal representative, who played a careful and refreshingly neutral role in the arguments.)

The referendum supporters knew the case law better and argued better, but not well enough, it seemed likely, to overcome the judge’s inclination to defer to the legislative body whose deliberations were in question, our City Council. Judges, understandably, want to respect the division of power, and you need a strong and clear argument to overcome that tendency.

I hope my sense is in error, but the judge didn’t seem much swayed by the sheer numbers of plans submitted (four against the Council plan), nor the fact that all the Council plan opponents seemed willing to have any of the other plans approved, so long as they weren’t the Council plan. His focus instead was on whether, and if so just why, the Council plan was manifestly inappropriate. 

The hearing began with tedious argument about whether or not the Council violated the Brown Act. They obviously did, which everyone, in their way, pretty much owned up to (even the City’s lawyer, who, in order to counter the argument that the City Attorney shouldn’t have hired outside counsel to represent the Council majority suing the city without first getting an authorization vote from the Council, only managed to cite a Municipal Code section empowering the CA to act on his/her own to hire outside representation when the city was sued for negligence. And she’d clearly prepared that argument in advance.) The judge wasn’t focused on the Brown Act, which is about openness and notification, not actions; he’s not going to overturn a Council decision because they acted, no matter how cravenly, without properly letting citizens know what they were doing. (The Council is meeting as I write this to “correct” these errors by voting retroactively to approve what they did earlier but without proper notification.) 

In the more germane discussion that followed, the judge asked one question I thought was crucial, and invited everyone to answer: Why is it significant that the Council picked one set of students to be in the so-called student district, and choose to move another set out? The answers were a patchwork, mostly having to do with asserting the importance of recognizing diverse student populations, but noone understood that the judge’s question itself showed that he was missing the issue at stake: whether the voters can be allowed to have any say at all over the configuration of their city’s Districts for the coming November election. The judge was not impressed by the answers, and nothing else after that seemed to break through to him, even a reliably impassioned plea from District 3 Councilmember Max Anderson to restore the elements of the democratic process that have been thoroughly trampled on, and to make sure that the people’s right to oversee their elected representatives isn’t completely ignored. 

All this hoo-hah has been, from the beginning, about finding a way to get rid of Worthington in the November election. The judge kept saying that the legal precedents having to do with truncated legislative processes weren’t on point, because the referendum hadn’t yet been before the voters for a vote, and wouldn’t be till November. But it was the Council’s February decision not to put the ordinance on the June ballot, as the Charter requires, that was the decisive event in this legislative process. Certainly, if their plan lost at the polls (well, when, not if, the Council majority would surely lose that vote because the District 7 map looked like a classic gerrymander), there would have been another hasty court. But in that case the Council’s plan, having been rejected, would have had no claim to deference. When they refused to put their plan before the voters in time to apply it to the November election districts, they surrendered any claim they had to first consideration before the Court and truncated the legislative process dealing with their ordinance. The real tragedy is, as Councilmember Anderson was trying to clarify, that a decision to grant the writ will mean that the Council has managed by a combination of stalling and refusing to put the matter before the voters to completely escape the referendum right. 

Don’t get me wrong; the judge is not some corrupt part of a machine. But, due to a number of factors, including a considerable number of red herrings but also a rambling presentation on behalf of the voters, he hasn’t shown any awareness that what the Council majority’s writ is actually asking him to do is to insulate them completely from the right of voters to step in by referendum to stay the operation of odious decisions by the elected body. 

The judge will issue his decision at 4 pm today. He's already rejected the Council majority's last request, that, in the event he decides in their favor, he also stay the normal operation of an appeal in order for the city clerk to proceed to prepare the ballot for the November election, which he noted would give undue and unnecessary added weight to the City Council majority's position. 

A judge today dismissed a Berkeley man's second-degree murder conviction for fatally stabbing a University of California at Berkeley student near campus six years ago, ruling that his trial lawyer failed to provide him with effective assistance of counsel. 

Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, 26, a former Berkeley City College student, was found guilty on May 13, 2010, in connection with the death of 21-year-old Christopher Wootton in the early morning hours of May 3, 2008, and was sentenced to a term of 16 years to life in state prison. 

Wootton, who was from Bellflower in Southern California, was only two weeks away from graduating with honors in nuclear engineering when he was stabbed during a confrontation in the parking lot of a sorority house in the 2400 block of Warring Street at about 2:45 a.m. on May 3, 2008. 

According to the evidence in Hoeft-Edenfield's four-month-long trial in Alameda County Superior Court in 2010, the stabbing occurred at the end of a drunken shouting match that developed when Hoeft-Edenfield, who worked at Jamba Juice in Berkeley, and a group of his friends encountered Wootton, who was a member of the nearby Sigma Pi fraternity house, and his friends on a street near campus. 

Hoeft-Edenfield's trial attorney, Yolanda Huang, admitted during his trial that he stabbed Wootton, but said he acted in self-defense after he was outnumbered, surrounded, kicked and stomped by Wootton and a large group of Wootton's friends. 

The California Supreme Court originally upheld Hoeft-Edenfield's conviction in 2012, but last year it issued an order to show cause why he shouldn't be entitled to relief based on his allegation that Huang rendered ineffective assistance by refusing to enter into plea bargain negotiations and failing to warn him of the potential consequences of going to trial. 

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Larry Goodman, who held a hearing on the matter last month, said in his ruling today that Huang failed to warn Hoeft-Edenfield that he could face a life sentence if he didn't accept a manslaughter plea bargain, went to trial and was convicted of murder. 

Goodman also said Huang was ineffective in negotiating a possible plea bargain and had a conflict of interest because she was representing Hoeft-Edenfield's friend, Adam Russell, as well as Hoeft-Edenfield in a lawsuit alleging that fraternity members started the fight that led to Wootton's death. 

The suit sought damages for emotional distress, negligence, assault and battery and conspiracy to bring about false arrest and malicious prosecution. 

Matthew Dalton, Hoeft-Edenfield's new attorney, said today that Huang had never handled a murder case before she represented Hoeft-Edenfield, who was a family friend, and hadn't handled any felony cases since the early 1990s. 

In his ruling, Goodman cited "the breathtaking level of disingenuousness, evasiveness and apparent dishonesty exhibited by Miss Huang throughout her representation of the petitioner (Hoeft-Edenfield)." 

Goodman said Huang's "lack of qualifications" to represent Hoeft-Edenfield combined with "her unexplainable arrogance" in dealing with prosecutors, judges and her own advisors "created a complex web of deception, misrepresentation, disloyalty and self-interest." 

Hoeft-Edenfield, who remains in custody without bail at the Alameda County Jail in Dublin, smiled and waived at his family members and friends as he left court in Oakland following Goodman's ruling. 

In the hallway outside of court, his family members shouted, "Justice is served." 

Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Shara Beltramo said her office will now try to enter into a plea bargain with Hoeft-Edenfield on a manslaughter charge and conduct a trial to try to convict him of second-degree murder again. 

Beltramo said her office can't seek a first-degree murder conviction because the jury at his previous trial acquitted him of that charge. 

---

See previous Planet coverage here.

An Oakland man is allegedly responsible for an assault with a baseball bat in Berkeley early Sunday that sent two people to the hospital, police said today. 

Frank Watson, 23, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon and probation violation, according to Berkeley police. 

Officers responded at 1:25 a.m. Sunday to the 2700 block of Durant Avenue to a report of an assault with a deadly weapon and learned two groups were involved in a verbal argument that turned physical in the rear parking lot of a fraternity. 

Police said Watson arrived at the scene during the altercation, grabbed a baseball bat from the trunk of a vehicle and struck two victims in the head with the bat. He then fled the area in a vehicle. 

Officers located and stopped the vehicle at the intersection of Warring and Parker streets. 

Police said Watson then tried to flee on foot but was detained at the intersection. 

The conditions of the victims were not immediately available, but police described their injuries as "significant." 

There were no other arrests stemming from the incident.

With a pull on a rope—and an assist from a man hidden atop the marquee—David Mayeri of the Berkeley Music Group and Mayor Tom Bates raised the curtain on the next stage in a long planned Downtown Berkeley project, the renovation and reopening of the UC Theatre. 

Shuttered since 2001, the much missed and admired historic movie palace which originally opened in 1917 will be converted by the non-profit BMG into a 1,460 person capacity live venue. Construction is planned for completion in 2015. 

The project was promoted Wednesday, April 23, 2014 with an event in the theatre lobby and the street outside. 

Planned alterations include conversion of the raked, single level, interior with fixed seating into three tiers arranged with either theatre seating, or cabaret-style table seating for 800, a dance floor, and a Meyer Sound system. 

The non-profit Berkeley Music Group plans to initially program 75-100 shows a year, “featuring a culturally diverse range of local, national, and international artists performing music genres ranging from Americana to zydeco and everything in between”, according to their press release. 

“The UC Theatre will be an all-ages venue”, and the programming will include live comedy, film events, and a speaker series, as well as opportunities for other local non-profits to use the theatre for fundraising events. 

Mayeri, who grew up in Berkeley and worked for 35 years for Bill Graham Presents, mastering the live music event trade, told the assembled crowd “when I went into the UC Theatre a few years back, I could exactly see the potential for the room.” 

“We’re thrilled to announce the start of construction this summer.” $2.7 has been raised to date, he said, of the planned $5.2 million project. He also announced an anonymous $250,000 challenge grant. “Today we ask for your support. We ask you to join us to ‘turn on the lights’.” 

Several local dignitaries made brief remarks, emceed by Berkeley Chamber of Commerce CEO Polly Armstrong, who said of the legendary 22 year run of weekly Rocky Horror Picture Show screenings at the UC, “I was too old, but my kids did” go to them. 

She said her children could probably supply some appropriate Rocky Horror quote for the occasion. (“A toast!” murmured someone in the audience, channeling one of the lines from the cult movie, where the audience would toss bread from the back rows.) 

“It’s so painful (the UC) has been unused for the past decade”, Armstrong said. The new project, proposed and approved by the City several years ago, would “help push the UC Theatre into the next and final stage of success.” 

“I’m just so pleased that this venue is about to open”, said Mayor Tom Bates. “Can you imagine what this will mean to the Downtown? We have so many great restaurants and this is just the icing on the cake.” 

After praising Downtown restaurants again, Bates rhapsodized that “this is the one thing we’re missing, a great entertainment place!” 

Armstrong adroitly hastened back to the podium to clarify, “I’m sure Tom didn’t mean we’re missing a great live entertainment venue” Downtown, reminding him the Freight and Salvage exists on the next block. “He just means a 1,460 seat” venue, larger than the Freight and Salvage, she assured the audience, as Bates sat back down. 

A later speaker was the acting director of the Freight and Salvage, who told the Berkeley Music Group team, “I’m here to welcome you to the neighborhood. We grow together. I’m totally excited that this place is coming back to life. We look forward to opportunities to collaborate on bookings.” 

“This concert venue will bring entertainment, vitality,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin, who represents Downtown Berkeley. “This is so critical to economic vitality and health. I can’t wait for the opening, and to come see the shows here.” 

Several speakers praised Mayeri’s tenacity in leading and promoting the planned project over several years. “I’m guessing there’s no one in the room who hasn’t gotten a call from David saying, ‘can I buy you some coffee and talk about the UC Theatre?’, Armstrong said. “He wins the passion prize.” 

“David Mayeri is a hell of a bulldog”, said Downtown Berkeley Association head John Caner. “I think he’s going to do it.” “University Avenue has been a little sorry”, Caner said. “Let’s share the love on University Avenue. This is really key as an anchor” for surrounding restaurants and businesses. 

Caner said that UC students had told him “what we really want is not to (have to) go to San Francisco”, for live entertainment. “This is really a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.” 

He pledged $1,000 for the challenge grant match, first saying ten thousand, then quickly correcting himself. “I’m on a non-profit budget.” Polly Armstrong said “I’ll match that $1,000!” and two others in the audience, including local attorney Moni Law, also quickly spoke up to pledge the same amount. 

City of Berkeley Economic Development Director Michael Caplan noted, “sometimes the biggest vision, the most transformative vision, is the one that see’s what’s there—that sees what can be a better version of itself.” He noted that the old UC Theatre was one of Downtown’s early entertainment venues. “It’s the first and oldest and in some ways the most powerful because of that. Let’s make Downtown the best cultural destination in the Bay Area.” 

Kevin Williams, from Berkeley Youth Alternatives, spoke, explaining a partnership program that would particularly bring West and South Berkeley youth to the new venue for internships and programs learning about live concert promotion and the entertainment business. 

Observing that the attending crowd was almost entirely white, Williams said, “we appreciate the emphasis on diversity” in the planned educational programs. “We want to make sure that our kids down in the community actually come up this way.” 

Speakers from Meyer Sound, including Helen Meyer, praised the project and described the state of the art sound technology they would be providing. 

After the speakers and a five minute video, the crowd went outside where one lane of University Avenue was blocked off and Bates and Mayeri unveiled the marquee, now reading “Let’s Turn on the Lights!” and giving the website for the project, www.theUCtheatre.org 

The large, single level, theatre interior was open for viewing during the event and looked much as it did during its film repertory days, although smelling musty and looking somewhat battered from more than a decade of closure. There was some apparent water damage, some pieces of plaster were missing from portions of the walls and ceiling, decorative end panels on the seats were gone, and some areas appeared to have had graffiti painted over, but most of the space was intact. 

The proposed project, if completed, would bring to an end community worries about loss of the theatre space which closed in 2001. Previous concepts for it—including a proposal to chop the large theatre up into smaller spaces—were floated, but died. 

In recent years there had been worries that the boarded up theatre, which includes storefronts along University Avenue and a second level of housing above the commercial strip, would either fall into complete disrepair, or be snapped up for development and demolished. The theatre was landmarked in 2002 after a landmark application petition was submitted by concerned citizens reacting against a plan to build apartments on the site. 

The author wrote more than a decade ago about the potential of the then-threatened UC Theatre to become a non-profit community performance space: A plan to save UC Theatre, nurture arts. 

A list of other Planet articles about the history of the U.C. Theater can be found here:

Jesse Arreguin and Alejandro Soto-Vigil were guests on KPFA's "Morning Mix" yesterday morning (April 24) and they came out swinging. Allegations emerged of lawbreaking by councilmembers and city staff. The public heard for the first time of a district 1 challenge to Councilmember Linda Maio in this November's election. In the course of the radio discussion, Alejandro Soto-Vigil said that he will run this November in district 1 to unseat Linda Maio. His candidacy is partly in response to Maio's role in the redistricting crisis which Soto-Vigil describes as a threat to democracy in Berkeley. 

Mayor Tom Bates and Vice-Mayor Linda Maio declined an invitation to appear on the program. 

Arreguin and Soto-Vigil were there to discuss a lawsuit brought by the City against its own City Clerk, the County Registrar, three council members, two students, and a handful of Berkeley activists. 

The lawsuit asks the court to partially overturn a successful referendum petition against council district lines selected by the council's dominant faction last December. Controversial district lines known as the "BSDC map" won the votes of Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Capitelli, Maio, Moore, Wengraf, and Wozniak. 

The map drew considerable criticism. Complaints arose that it divided neighborhoods and, significantly, excluded traditionally more progressive student voters from district 7. The map moved student coops and dorms on the north side of campus into district 6 whose voters are overwhelming homeowners with a reputation for being conservative (or, in Berkeley-speak, "moderate") voters. The map replaced students displaced from district 7 with an increase in the number of fraternities in district 7. Critics of the map have alleged that this is an attempt to dilute the vote of Berkeley progressives in a kind of divide and conquer gerrymandering strategy. 

Arreguin, Soto-Vigil and others responded to the new map by circulating a referendum petition against it. Within 30 days over the winter holidays, the petition was able to gather more than 7,800 signatures. Only 5,275 were needed for the petition to succeed. 

Berkeley's Charter requires that, because the petition was successful, the controversial district lines must be suspended from taking effect. The Charter offered the council two options: It could rescind the controversial lines and adopt a compromise map, as council had done in 2002 in an earlier referendum challenge. Or council could place the referendum up for a popular vote in June of 2014. 

Council chose neither option. Instead, the votes to rescind the map or schedule a June vote were delayed until it was too late to place the matter on the June ballot. In a surprise vote on matters not listed on the council agenda, the council's dominant faction voted instead to place the referendum on the November ballot and to hire an attorney to file the present lawsuit. 

If the city's lawsuit is successful, the BSDC map will be used in the November election in spite of the successful referendum petition against it. 

In materials submitted to the court, Soto-Vigil, Arreguin, Councilmember Kriss Worthington, and Cal Student and Council Intern Stefan Elgstrand allege that council's delayed vote violated the City Charter, that votes on matters not on the agenda violated the Brown Act by not allowing for public input, and that city staff unlawfully hired an attorney for the suit months before authorization was provided by council. They further allege that the City deliberately delayed filing the suit, forcing it to be heard on an expedited schedule that is unfair to defendants. 

For such reasons, defendants argue, the dominant faction's request to use the BSDC map in November must not be granted. Instead, defendants point out three alternative maps available for use as well as the possibility of using the 2002 lines, just as they were used in 2012. 

The court's decision is due on April 30th. Oral arguments, open to the public, will be heard the day prior, April 29th, at Department 31 in the Alameda Superior Court in Oakland at 1:30PM. 

Hear the Whole Program

For two weeks, a podcast of the radio show will be available from the Morning Mix Archives: 

https://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/102227 

More than seventy-five Kaiser Permanente workers marched, picketed, chanted, and sang outside Oakland Medical Center Wednesday to call attention to deficiencies in Kaiser's mental health services. 

Thirty-five Oakland adult services mental health clinicians — therapists, counselors, social workers, and psychologists — were joined by other clinicians, as well as nurses, and patients and their families in a rally to raise awareness about severe hardships faced by Kaiser members throughout the state. The clinicians protested Kaiser's effort to implement policies at Oakland Medical Center that have been used in Redwood City, where six Kaiser mental health patients have committed suicide. 

The Oakland clinicians' fellow mental health professionals and NUHW members at Kaiser facilities throughout California wore stickers to work Wednesday declaring their support for the strike. 

The group gathered at 8 a.m. and picketed outside the hospital while Kaiser officials looked on nervously. Kaiser had attempted to curtail the picket by erecting barricades along the sidewalks and sealing off parking spaces. 

At 10 a.m. NUHW President Sal Rosselli addressed the crowd, laying out the issues faced by Kaiser patients and caregivers for the better part of five years. He was followed by Oakland psychologist Mindy Ginne, mental health worker Janine Thomas, and Zenei Cortez, co-president of the California Nurses Association and a nurse at Kaiser South San Francisco. Oakland mayoral candidate and NUHW lawyer Dan Siegel also addressed the group, voicing his support for the clinicians, NUHW, and the Kaiser patients who are not getting the care they need, deserve, and pay for. 

Systemwide, Kaiser Permanente's mental health departments are understaffed, with not enough therapists, psychiatrists, and counselors to care for the number of patients seeking care. Kaiser members in dire need of psychiatric help are often required to wait months for appointments, in violation of state law. And too often when patients do get an appointment, Kaiser cuts costs by funneling them into group therapy rather than individualized care. Oakland clinicians are concerned that these problems will only increase as hundreds of thousands of Californians become Kaiser members under the Affordable Care Act. 

Several families have joined a class action lawsuit against Kaiser due to its inadequate mental health services. The lead plaintiff, Susan Futterman Paroutaud, is suing Kaiser over the 2012 death of her husband. Fred Paroutaud was a gifted composer and pianist diagnosed as bipolar who hanged himself in his home after repeated attempts to secure an appointment with Kaiser's mental health department. 

"We are failing our patients, and for some the failures can prove fatal," said Clement Papazian, LCSW. "Kaiser Permanente's policies are forcing mental health clinicians throughout the state to provide substandard care." 

Kaiser caregivers first sounded the alarm about these issues in 2011. Clinicians throughout the state worked through their union, NUHW, to document Kaiser's policies and the harmful effects on patients. The result was a comprehensive report, "Care Delayed, Care Denied," that brought these issues to the attention of California's Department of Managed Health Care. The DMHC confirmed the clinicians' findings and levied a $4 million fine — the second largest in its history — against Kaiser for illegally delaying patients’ access to mental health services and for "systemic" violations of California law, including the California Mental Health Parity Act. 

Unfortunately, Kaiser has done little to correct these problems, and even tried to bar the public from an upcoming hearing on the matter. On April 11, Judge Ruth Astle of the Office of Administrative Hearings in Oakland denied Kaiser's motion to close the hearing and seal the hearing documents. 

"Kaiser needs to get its house in order now," said Andris Skuja. "Patients' lives are at stake. If Kaiser can't care for the patients we have now, how are we going to care for the hundreds of thousands of new members coming in under the Affordable Care Act?" 

Kaiser Permanente's failure to address these problems led clinicians to take matters into their own hands by taking their case to the public. A clinician at Kaiser's Santa Rosa facility has resigned in protest and is blogging about the obstacles faced by him and his fellow caregivers in tending to their patients' needs (see 90daystochange.com).

In case you ever wondered whether you should sign a petition, check out the exciting plans to revitalize the UC Theater.

There has lately been a bit of tut-tutting from Berkeley Councilmember Laurie Capitelli about how risky petition signing might be: Op-ed: Think about the importance of your signature on a petition.

This just in: Signing petitions to put local initiatives on the ballot is nothing to worry about.

Think about it. If it weren’t for the citizen petition process, the U.C. Theater might not be around anymore. 

Way back in the distant past, about 12 years or so ago when I was on the City of Berkeley Landmark Preservation Commission, architect Jim Novosel submitted an application to landmark the UC Theater on behalf of a potential client. At first glance it seemed like a good idea, but the application contained deliberately engineered loopholes sufficient to allow the generous interior theater space to be demolished so that a tower of offices or apartments could be constructed in its place behind a preserved façade. The city’s Planning Department staff endorsed Novosel’s plan. 

( I don’t remember whether future developer Mark Rhoades was the LPC secretary at the time, but he held that job for several years when he was still on the city side of Berkeley’s revolving door planning process. And Novosel has now been appointed to the city’s Planning Commission. It’s an insider’s game, all the way.) 

A citizen named Howie Muir, a film buff, figured out what the consequences would be if the building were landmarked without protecting its complete shell and footprint to make future theater uses possible. He rushed around collecting enough voters’ signatures on a petition which required the LPC to consider an alternative. With the help of planning consultant John English, he created a comprehensive landmark designation statement calling out the significant parts of the building which ultimately saved the whole theater. I seem to remember some compromises in the final language, but the U.C. Theater is still standing, thanks to prompt citizen action, and now it will finally be able to contribute uniquely to downtown Berkeley. 

In his missive, Capitelli pats himself and his colleagues on their backs: 

“I sincerely believe that elected officials must go through a process of gathering information from a variety of perspectives, weighing the public benefits and implications of those perspectives and then developing a policy or law that emerges from such a process.” 

Sure, it would be swell if our elected councilmembers always did this, and always got things right when they did, but sadly, they don’t and don’t. Particularly if big bucks are involved. 

In fact, many times elected officials end up doing the opposite of what the electorate wants. 

A recently released study by professors at Princeton and Northwestern has been widely reported as showing that our political system is an oligarchy, government by economic elites, not a democracy, government by consent of the governed. 

John Cassidy described it in the New Yorker: 

“From the Dept. of Academics Confirming Something You Already Suspected comes a new study concluding that rich people and organizations representing business interests have a powerful grip on U.S. government policy. After examining differences in public opinion across income groups on a wide variety of issues, the political scientists Martin Gilens, of Princeton, and Benjamin Page, of Northwestern, found that the preferences of rich people had a much bigger impact on subsequent policy decisions than the views of middle-income and poor Americans. Indeed, the opinions of lower-income groups, and the interest groups that represent them, appear to have little or no independent impact on policy.”

This is obvious even in supposedly liberal northern California, though occasionally local voter-backed initiatives succeed in reversing the trend. Around here, the biggest financial interest—Something Else You Already Suspected—is the building industry and its finance adjuncts. That’s why we’ve seen so many initiatives lately, not only in Berkeley but in San Francisco and lots of other places, designed to prevent the electeds from giving away the store to developers. 

In San Francisco, it took a referendum to prevent those good liberals on their Board of Supervisors from making an exception to the city’s height limits as a gift for a big waterfront project with bigtime backers. Now S.F. citizens are trying to make doubly sure that it doesn’t happen again with their “No Wall on the Waterfront” initiative. 

The Berkeley initiatives now in circulation, the very ones the good councilmember wants you to worry about, are similar to those in San Francisco. Here too, there’s a pattern of exceptions to clearly stated public policies made by elected officials for the profit of developers. 

According to Dan Knapp of the Berkeley Bayfront Coalition, which is proposing the West Berkeley Initiative, “the purpose is to reaffirm support for the West Berkeley Plan, which we see as a living document that is being undermined by developers working through City Council.” 

He says in an email that “it has an advisory part on recycling, and a binding part limiting council discretion to grant variances on height limits without a vote of the people… similar to the "No Wall on the Waterfront" initiative …” 

Another such initiative in circulation in Berkeley, the Green Downtown Initiative, is designed to add enforcement provisions to the council-sponsored Measure R, which the voters endorsed in 2010. It adds genuine protection for public, historic and cultural resources, and creates a Civic Center Overlay to the downtown zoning code which is expected to aid in saving the historic Berkeley Post Office. 

Recent developer proposals in both West Berkeley and Downtown Berkeley, such as the one for a downtown hotel which has just been shown to the Zoning Adjustment Board, have been asking for, and often getting, variances to the zoning restrictions which are already in place. Like the San Francisco measures, these Berkeley initiatives add teeth to what was supposed to be existing public policy. It shouldn’t be necessary, but it seems to be. 

And in any event, what’s wrong with letting the Berkeley voters decide? We have here a small town with a well-schooled population that knows how to read—we should be able to make up our own minds what to sign and what to vote for, shouldn’t we? And without Mr. Capitelli’s advice. 

As a teen-aged daughter once said to me, unsolicited advice is rarely welcome. Thank you very much, Mr. C., but no thanks. 

[For more details, see my previous editorial about the U.C. Theater from 5 years ago, as well as these stories. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. ] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dan O'Neill

 

 

Dan O'Neill

 

 

Dan O'Neill

 

On April 17 the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce stated in a leaflet that it supported "REGIONAL WAGE LEVELS". Less than one week later, on April 22, MAYOR BATES sent a press release stating that adjacent cities should join together to adopt a REGIONAL MINIMUM WAGE LEVEL. He is making this proposal instead of supporting the Berkeley minimum wage proposal submitted to the City Council by its own Labor Commission.  

Of course, since the adjacent communities either have already enacted minimum wage laws or are currently in the process of doing so, it makes no sense currently for Berkeley to be the exception. Only after Berkeley has its own minimum wage ordinance, like other communities, can we then talk about a regional approach. 

It is most difficult to believe that the timing is only coincidental. Many of us were wondering how he came up with the idea of substituting a commitment to achieving a living wage for an approach that would effectively postpone if not kill the ordinance submitted by the Council's own Labor Commission. Now we know! 

The Berkeley City Council will meet on Thursday, May 1, 7pm to consider enacting the minimum wage proposal submitted by its own Labor Commission. Because a large turnout is expected, the Council meeting will be held at Longfellow Middle School Auditorium, 1500 Derby Street (cross street Sacramento). We'll be holding a rally there at 6pm. Please do what you can to join us.

The City Council will hold--at long last--a Worksession on Drone Policy, tonight. This is a special meeting before the regular 7pm Council meeting. 

Peace and Justice along with the Police Review Commission, supported by ACLU, EFF, BORDC, and Alameda County Against Drones will make presentations in favor of strict restrictions particularly on police acquisition and use of surveillance drones. 

Drone proponents are muddying the water by claiming the the FAA has authority over the skies. Local civilian leadership, however, can and must direct its own police force. It must defend civli liberties and privacy of Berkeley residents, and ensure that only appropriate and safe technology is acquired and used. 

Your participation is much appreciated. 

WHEN: 5:30 to 7pm
WHERE: Council chambers, 2134 MLK Jr Way
See: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Clerk/City_Council/2014/04_Apr/City_Council__04-29-2014_-_Special_Meeting_Agenda.aspx 

ALSO: 

The NAACP is calling on all allies and supporters to attend the Council meeting beginning at 6:30 pm. 

"Berkeley NAACP plans to address the City Council about the NAACP Town Hall Summary report [on racial discrimination in health, housing, education, law enforcement, and employment] and recommendations that were put forth to the council. On November 19, 2013 at the Berkeley NAACP City Council Work Session, Council members agreed to convene an Ad HOC committee to study the Town Hall report and make recommendations to the full City Council.

"We expect council members to keep their word and convene an Ad HOC group and take Action on the recommendations in the NAACP Town Hall Summary Report."Also on tonight's agenda: 

* a joint proposal by Commission on Labor and Peace & Justice to dramatically lower the threshold requiring sweatshop-free certifications to $1,000 contracts from the previous $25,000. We have city manager support, so this is likely to pass!

One in five American seniors suffers from depression. The illness can be crippling at any age, but it wreaks an especially harrowing toll among the elderly.

Fortunately, 80 percent of those who obtain medical care for depression will see their symptoms improve, and in many cases disappear altogether. With the prevalence of depression among seniors twice as high as in the general population, it's critical for older Americans to have access to adequate treatment.

Yet the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently proposed a rule change that would have made it harder for seniors to get the medications they need. The sharp reversal of policy was unwise both clinically and on cost-containment grounds. 

The change concerned the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. Thankfully, Washington lawmakers were able to halt the proposal. 

But lawmakers must remain vigilant to ensure that seniors dealing with depression and other devastating illnesses continue to have access to the prescription drugs they need—as the same proposal could easily resurface in the coming months. 

The proposed rule would have eroded a long-standing policy guaranteeing seniors access to medications considered vital to their health. Currently, insurers are required to cover "all or substantially all" drugs in six "protected classes" that pertain to treatments for depression, seizures, autoimmune disorders, transplant rejection, cancer, and HIV. 

But, with an eye to the short-term bottom line, CMS had proposed stripping antidepressants, antipsychotics, and immunosuppressants for transplant rejection of their protected status. If adopted, insurers would no longer have had to cover the full range of therapies available. Seniors would have seen their treatment options reduced and could have even lost access to medications they've long taken. 

The CMS even acknowledged that seniors and their doctors would have had less to work with in finding effective treatments. According to its own analysis, patients who currently have access to 57 mental health drugs could have seen their options dwindle to 15. Those who rely on antipsychotics, another affected class of medicines, could have seen their options slashed by 12. The agency defended reduced choice on the ground of saving costs. 

Not surprisingly, physicians and patient advocates took a different view. They pointed to the negative impact such a change would have had on the well-being of many patients, a consideration difficult to capture solely in budget terms. 

Doctors have long observed that different patients respond in different ways to the same medication, especially for complex illnesses like schizophrenia and depression. According to the largest trial of multiple medication treatment for depression, conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health, only half of participants responded to the first treatment they received. The other half had to try up to four different treatment strategies involving multiple medication regimens before they found relief. 

Not having access to a full range of medicines can have profound health consequences. Those suffering from mental illness live on average 25 years less than other Americans, due in large part to complications from treatable chronic medical conditions. 

In the case of depression, studies have found that depression among the elderly nearly triples the risk of stroke. Depressed seniors also have more difficulty recovering from heart attacks, hip fractures, and such infectious diseases as pneumonia. 

For the 2.4 million American adults who suffer from schizophrenia, effective treatment is critical. Almost half of those diagnosed with the illness attempt suicide. But with appropriate medication, that risk diminishes significantly. In fact, nearly 50 percent of patients experience positive outcomes with treatment. 

Restricting patient choice does not provide effective care, nor does it control costs. Switching patients to cheaper drugs may have saved money in the short term, but the cost of dealing with poorer health outcomes would soon have more than offset any such savings. As one medical journal puts it, "Nothing is more expensive than treatment failure." 

This is especially true for some of Medicare's most vulnerable patients. A full 83 percent of Part D prescriptions for antipsychotics and 51 percent for antidepressants are filled by low-income seniors. These seniors are not only in poorer health, they're particularly susceptible to treatment disruption. When they can't take their medicines as prescribed, they often end up in need of inpatient care, at huge cost to the system. 

Medicare Part D has been one of the government's most successful healthcare programs, boasting 90 percent participation and a 94 percent approval rating. The program already has effective tools to manage the use of drugs within protected classes and keep costs down. 

While Part D is safe for now, lawmakers must remain ready to defend it. 

---

Charles S. Ingoglia is the senior vice president of public policy and practice improvement for the National Council for Community Behavioral Health, the unifying voice of America's community mental health and substance use treatment organizations.

Is there a way to use each person’s ideas to solve the problems facing our nation? Can we establish a Think Bank to which all individuals can contribute? It seems our Republican representatives prefer one dollar one vote to one person one vote. They want high earners who contribute mightily to their election campaigns to have a mighty share in deciding the direction of the nation. 

Ordinary poor people are not chiselers. Most of them simply do not get the opportunity to acquire skills that can land them good jobs. Some of them have so little by way of food and shelter for their families they get dispirited. Out of frustration, they choose the self-destructive path of drugs and alcohol. They feel depressed and lose connection to their right mind. The loss of pride in themselves leads to gangs, guns and robberies. 

More urgently than supporting democracy abroad our government must pay attention to the needs of people at home. The time is now.

Award-winning journalist Matt Taibbi has recently published an explosive new book, “The Divide: American Injustice in the Age of the Wealth Gap” that chronicles the gross injustices in our judicial system. The income inequality between the wealthiest and vulnerable poor - predominantly people of color - has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression. The ongoing drug war has swept tens of thousands predominately poor and people of color in its dragnet and incarcerated them for heavy jail terms often for mild offenses. By contrast, the vast majority of white-collar criminals are swotted with soft noodles and avoid jail time.  

Retiring Security and Exchange, attorney, James Kidney echoed Taibbi’s concerns stating, that his former bosses were “tentative and fearful" to hold Wall Street accountable for the 2008 economic meltdown. During his tenure, Kidney, had tried but was severely hampered to bring charges against more executives in the agency’s 2010 case against Goldman Sachs. He complained bitterly that the SEC has become, "an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors. ... Tough enforcement, risky enforcement, is subject to extensive negotiation and weakening." Taibbi observed that none of perpetrators of white collar crime were ever indicted; nobody went to jail. Taibbi sites one example of an African American man who was arrested for “obstructing pedestrian traffic for standing outside his house” prompting one New York councilman from admonishing the police department for the "epidemic of false arrests."

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We believe this to be sarcasm.]

Councilman Laurie Capitelli has urged good citizens to question the need for, and motives of, the people seeking signatures on initiative petitions, and by implication, to vote against them. That would include the Overlay Petition which seeks to prevent the privatization of our public buildings (including but not limited to the U.S. Post Office).

I urge you to obey him and question the motives behind that ordinance before you sign it.  

Why?

First: Because it is good for you to have your public spaces taken away from you. You don’t deserve them. The less public space there is the more room there will be for private profitable use; and

Second: Public spaces just encourage public meetings which are a thorn in the side of your public officials who want to sell the City; and

Third: There are better uses for public property if they are privatized such as campaign headquarters for Laurie Capitelli and his buddy, Mayor Bates, who just told a meeting of developers that he foresees great uses for the Post Office site such as a high-rise hotel and office buildings. (The very same Mayor who stole many copies of a local newspaper that endorsed the opposing mayoral candidate. And who later helped the demise of The Daily Planet by claiming that the newspaper boxes were a blight on the streets. The other papers in those boxes are not a blight. Why can’t you understand the difference?) But I digress. Your public buildings would be better served by high-rise hotels and condominiums; and

Fourth: Councilman Capitelli can read those petitions and then he’ll know you signed them and he’ll know your name and address. And then try to get a street light on your block or have your garbage collected. Good luck. Maybe the Council will sell your house; and

Fifth: You needn’t question the motives of those who want to build privately owned hotels and office buildings on public property. They must be thinking only of you. But surely you must question the motives of those who seek to protect public space. And how can you question the motives of a public official/councilmember who opposes an initiative petition to save the public commons?

Sixth: There may be unintended consequences of the use of public spaces: You might catch the flu. 

Conclusion: So I urge you not to sign any petition at all in Berkeley.

If you do sign anything your name and address will be reported to the Secret Task Force For Active Investigation (STASI for short).

Furthermore, I urge you not only not to sign the Overlay Petition but to urge your friends and neighbors and family not to sign the Overlay Petition. If they are misguided enough to sign it, please be good citizens and report their names and addresses to Councilman Laurie Capitelli who can protect our democracy and inform the Secret Task Force for Active Investigation (STASI).

"Now the camel's nose is truly under the side of the tent."

Fewer and fewer local community colleges students transfer to UCSD, while that public distinguished university no longer subscribes to any guaranteed transfer program. UCSD's acceptance rate for freshmen is now 33%. The ones accepted had high school grade point averages bloated by Advanced Placement classes (some public high schools may offer 25 such classes, while others offer few-to-none). The top 9%—it used to be 12.5%— of high school graduates are guaranteed admission to the University of California —but for the most part they're relegated to the "Lesser UCs." UCLA and UC Berkeley accept more and more out-of-state and foreign students. 

"It's the money, stupid." 

Very Unhappily Yours, Richard Thompson '80 UC Berkeley Alumnus; MA, '83 UCSD Alumnus

Sometimes I think there is a conspiracy to prevent persons with mental illness from doing "too well." It just seems odd to me that when someone with mental illness starts to do well, a number of unfortunate events will arise to knock the person back down to an earlier level. 

However, this does not have to entail that there is a conspiracy. An equally valid explanation for the setbacks many of us experience could be the idea of paying back karma. Or, if you don't want to go the karma route because that's not in your belief system, you could invoke the idea of us being subject to a random roll of the dice. 

Am I paranoid to think that many people with mental illness are doomed in later life to living on the fringes of society, without basic comfort and under harsh conditions? 

Maybe not. On the amount of money the government provides, usually not much comfort is to be had. Owning a car, for example, may be out of the question. 

When a person with mental illness reaches older age, they have presumably been taking psychiatric medications for a number of decades. This might cause such a person to have debilitating and horrible long-term side-effects. They may have several physical health issues which they may be managing or which may be eating away at their bodies. 

Persons with mental illness are up against a lot of obstacles in the struggle to do well in life. 

Or, perhaps my experiences are skewed. If someone recovers and moves on to live a normal life, such a person is no longer visible to me because they are no longer attending the mental health venue where I go. Those classified as "chronic" never seem to make much progress in life, and may continue coming back for more mental health treatment, while those who get well are underrepresented in my and many people's observations. 

However, I have seen numerous people who, over time, have not become better off, but have deteriorated. 

Conspiracy theories make paranoia worse. In one's thoughts, one should seek alternatives to believing that it is because they are "out to get you" that things are going wrong. Life is hard and has many difficulties for persons with or without mental illness. The truth always lies somewhere in the middle of one's far-out conjectures versus the naiveté that the accommodating mental health consumer is expected to have. Medication may induce some level of gullibility as well as manipulability. Yet the lack of medication and not trusting anyone lead to one's misfortune. 

Reasons why many mentally ill people don't do well when older include use of illicit drugs, noncompliance with medication, compliance with medication (and with it the advent of long-term side effects), housing problems, financial problems, destructive relationships, and a number of other reasons. And let's not forget that for some people, progression of the illness causes decreasing levels of functioning. 

Many persons with mental illness die in their forties and fifties due to the health risks of medication, the risks of tobacco use (a common habit among mentally ill people) and the poor diet along with sedentary lifestyle that exist due to circumstances often beyond our control. 

Yet, there is hope. Numerous people who have had severe psychiatric and emotional problems have outlasted the worst of their difficulties. They may have an inheritance that allows them to live with some amount of comfort and ease. They may, on the other hand, have been able to eke out some kind of career niche. Not all persons with mental illness have severe chronic health problems. Some persons with health problems are able to get them resolved through diet, exercise or through whatever treatment is applicable.

From 1770 to 1820 in the United States, the mentally ill were routinely confined to prisons and jails. In the 1840s, activist Dorothea Dix lobbied for better living conditions for the mentally ill after witnessing the dangerous and unhealthy conditions in which many patients lived. Over a 40-year period, Dix successfully persuaded the U.S. government to fund the building of 32 state psychiatric hospitals. By the mid-1950s, there was a push for deinstitutionalization and outpatient treatment began, facilitated by the development of a variety of antipsychotic drugs and a move toward community-oriented care. It was thought that psychiatric patients would have a higher quality of life if treated in their communities rather than in isolated mental hospitals.  

Since 1970, because of a reduced availability of state hospital beds, lack of affordable housing, and underfunded community treatment, the mentally ill have been more often confined to prisons and jails.  

At their maximum census in 1955, the state mental hospitals held 558,922 patients. Today, they hold approximately 35,000 patients, and states are continuing to close beds to reduce that number. In 2012, there were estimated to be 356,268 inmates with severe mental illness in prisons and jails. There were also approximately 35,000 patients with severe mental in state psychiatric hospitals. This means that there are ten times the number of persons with serious mental illness in prisons and jails than in state psychiatric hospitals.  

The problems associated with placing the mentally ill in prisons and jails include: the mentally ill are confined longer than other prisoners; behavioral issues; victimization of the mentally ill prisoners; deterioration of their conditions because of lack of treatment; a disproportionate number placed in solitary confinement which exacerbates their condition; a disproportionate number of suicides; higher rates of recidivism.; and increased taxpayer costs.  

It is probably unfair to blame the poor treatment of the mentally ill in prisons and jail entirely on the prison and jail personnel for they have few options as they are usually untrained or equipped to house hundreds of thousands of mentally ill prisoners. In many cases, they do not have the necessary psychiatric medications and instead rely in many cases, on solitary confinement or restraint. 

It has long been established that under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitutional, persons have the right to medical and psychological care while in prison or jail. To deny needed medical and psychological care is to add punishment in excess of the punishment imposed by the sentencing court. For example, here in California, the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Plata, ruled that California's overcrowded prison system could not provide anything close to adequate medical or health care to its 147,000 prisoners. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “Prisoners retain the essence of human dignity inherent in all persons. Respect for that dignity animates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.” The Supreme Court ruled that California must remedy the situation by reducing its prison population to 137.5 percent capacity from the current 175.5 percent. 

In "The Treatment of Persons With Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails: A State Survey" (Survey) outlines what is needed is to maintain a functioning public mental health treatment system so that mentally ill persons do not end up in prisons and jails. The Survey recommends: 

* Reform mental illness treatment laws and practices in the community to eliminate barriers to treatment for individuals too ill to recognize they need care, so they receive help before they are so disordered they commit acts that result in their arrest.  

* Reform jail and prison treatment laws so inmates with mental illness can receive appropriate and necessary treatment just as inmates with medical conditions receive appropriate and necessary medical treatment. 

* Implement and promote jail diversion programs such as mental health courts. 

* Use court-ordered outpatient treatment (assisted outpatient treatment/AOT) to provide the support at-risk individuals need to live safely and successfully in the community. 

* Encourage cost studies to compare the true cost of housing individuals with serious mental illness in prisons and jails to the cost of appropriately treating them in the community. 

* Establish careful intake screening to identify medication needs, suicide danger, and other risks associated with mental illness. 

* Institute mandatory release planning to provide community support and foster recovery. 

* Provide appropriate mental illness treatment for inmates with serious psychiatric illness.  

The authors of the Survey propose a "Model Law" for inmate treatment to authorize city and county jails to administer nonemergency involuntary medication for mentally ill inmates in need of treatment. 

On Sunday, May 4^th, 2014, at 7:00 p.m.,The Handel Opera Project will present, Médée by Luigi Cherubini.

Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries and his opera Medea in its Italian version was made famous by none other than Maria Callas. The performance stars soprano Eliza O’Malley in the title role; tenor Brian Thorsett in the role of Jason; soprano Sara Hagenbuch as Dirce; baritone Martin Bell as Dirce’s father Creon; and mezzo-soprano Kathleen Moss as Neris. 

The performance will take place at The Christian Science Organization at the University building, 2601 Durant in Berkeley, a beautiful historic building designed by Bernard Maybeck’s student Henry H. Gutterson which has undergone some major repairs recently. With its splendid acoustics, the hall is a wonderful space for chamber opera. 

In the past two seasons, The Handel Opera Project has performed Giulio Cesare, Acis and Galatea, Allor chio dissi addio, and Rodelinda all by out namesake, Mr. Handel – as well as Mr. Bach’s Coffee Cantata, Mr. Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and The Impresario, and Mr. Gluck’s Orphee et Euridice 

The Handel Opera Project is an affiliate of The San Francisco Early Music Society.

People supporting an increase in Berkeley's minimum wage will rally on Tuesday, May 1 at 6 PM, just before the Berkeley City Council meets at 7pm to consider enacting the minimum wage proposal submitted by the Berkeley Labor Commission. Because a large turnout is expected, the Council meeting will be held at Longfellow Middle School Auditorium, 1500 Derby Street (cross street Sacramento). 



The Berkeley Labor Commission proposed a minimum wage beginning at $10.74 an hour for businesses with up to 50 employees, and $13.34 for larger businesses with the minimum wage adjusted yearly for inflation. Employees would also receive a medical benefit of $2.22 an hour if health insurance is not provided. The cost to consumers would be minimal. Even if the entire cost of the wage increase is passed on to consumers, the cost of grocery shopping would increase on the average less than fifty cents a week. Recognizing that workers need a living wage, San Jose and San Francisco have already increased their minimum wages. Today, for two-thirds of the workforce, wages adjusted for inflation are lower than they were 14 years ago. 

Raising the minimum wage in our cities stops the erosion in the standard of living. Berkeley recognizes the effect of inflation: landlords who own rent controlled apartments in Berkeley receive an annual cost of living adjustment. Providing a living wage would not only reduce poverty. By increasing purchasing power, it would stimulate the economy and therefore reduce unemployment.

 For information about the minimum wage act and those who support it, contact:

 Harry Brill, at 510-559-3138, email harry.brill@sbcglobal.net, or Nicky Gonzalez Yuen at 510-912-3181 or email, Nickygy@mac.com.