Public Comment

New: An Open Letter to the New Mayor and City Council of Berkeley

Dan McMullan, For Disabled People Outside Project
Wednesday December 07, 2016 - 02:41:00 PM

Congratulations to those of you newly elected. Please excuse me for getting right down to business but recent events dictate that I let you and the entire council know about recent events that have caused a lot of pain and anguish to those it was perpetrated upon and consternation to the entire community of caring individuals that got out and voted to bring humanity back to Berkeley and fairness, honesty and transparency back to our elected offices. 

We pray that the voice of one real estate developer being heard over a thousand citizens is over. We expect a stop to Berkeley Tax Dollars being given to "Associations" so they can use the money to lobby against issues important to the average citizen. Issues like the fair wage bill and criminalization of the poor. 

I am sorry, there is no better way to say it...The city manager has issues concerning the telling the truth. She also seems quite willing to to bend past agreements to make an end run around the Mayor and the Council.  

When they came out to crush the homeless, elderly and disabled her representative Jim Hynes stated. "We are here at the direction from the top, the City Council, the Mayor and the City Manager." What he neglected to tell the police department was that he was using a directive from people no longer in office. Bad form.  

The City Manager then told a local blog that She was proud of doing it. There is nothing for her to be proud of. Taking blankets off people at 5 am is negligent. When they die it is negligent homicide. Besides being cruel and sociopathic. She should feel ashamed. 

I was there. For this pre-dawn raid on homeless, disabled and elderly people at 5AM in freezing cold weather. 

I was surrounded by police and threatened. I was prevented from helping people with their stuff. I watched as they flung their things in a truck in purposeful disregard. They even took a man's wheelchair. They blocked filming and witnesses. They also cleared out other unassociated camp's in the park. There were no drugs, alcohol or needle's in our camp. There are sick, elderly and disabled in the camp. One is a diabetic. That is the point. We have people dying out here. Our camp was clean tidy and uncluttered. No one was doing vandalism of any kind.  

Jim Haynes who relishes the pain he inflicts at the City Manager's direction smiled in my face and said. " Have a nice day.." Say that when you are not standing behind four police officers.. Jim is a coward. Most abusers of the disabled, the elderly and women are. 

What kind of person goes out in the night to take a blanket off disabled, elderly homeless? What kind of person, uses their God given brain and college education to demonize human beings instead of using these blessings coming up with solutions. The " Poo-Poo, Needles, Garbage, Vermin" thing, is a little worn after all these years of them (The City Management team) taking money and not earning their salaries with their endless divisive propagandizing. 

The City's Manager, Jim Haynes and Gregory Daniels have to go if we are to get anything constructive done in this town. They have shown nothing but disrespect and willful disregard for the expressed wishes of the new mayor and incoming City Council members who were elected by a City tired of hateful platitudes in place of humane action.