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By Emily Judd
A while back I read an article in the Daily Planet about my Dad fixing bikes. I want to let people know about a very close friend named Mrs. Reed who has helped California Street a lot.
Mrs. Reed moved into her house on California St. in 1975, two or three years before my parents moved in. She tried to keep up the house, since her landlord couldn't afford to fix anything. The plumbing was one of the problems. After 20 years, she gave up and moved out.
When she moved in, there was a hippie bus park on the street. They ran electrical cords from the corner house to their buses. At night, people would trip on the cords since it was so dark on that section of sidewalk.
Mrs. Reed called the city to ask for a ladder and work clothes so she could install a street light since they wouldn't. The threat got the city to put in a new streetlight.
Her complaints also solved other problems such as: the hippies using her front yard as a bathroom; holes left by sloppy street construction; people dumping trash in the street; and people sitting on the apartment rails and selling dope.
People used to park blocking her garage. She asked the city if she could paint the curb red. They said yes.
Mr. Harvell used to own a store on the corner. He had the same sort of problem but had been shy of doing the marking himself. So she called the city and asked them to do it. When she came home from work one day, a man named Mr. Neiheim phoned to say “Have you seen the grocery store?” She looked and the city had painted the curb as a loading zone as she had asked.
Though she didn't get much formal education many people might wish to be like her. Mrs. Reed is the kind of person who doesn't ignore the neighborhood. Instead, she watches out for it. Her mom said she would grow up to read people and she does.
She didn't get much schooling because she grew up on a sharecropping farm. She got a job in a mortuary arranging bodies for the embalmer, she modeled clothes, and she's taken care of kids. She knew me before I was born. She loves kids, and has been a great friend to me and my whole family (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this).
Emily Judd is 10 and lives in Berkeley
Where’s the audit?
Dear Editor:
The California PUC was going to do an audit of PG&E’s claims of poverty. What were the findings?
Did the audit investigate the overhead costs at PG&E? How does PG&E compare with other investor owned utilities (IOU’s) around the country? Are they overloaded with executives? Does this include the employees of subsidiary companies? How many attorneys are being carried as employees? What is the status of slush funds for tree trimming and under grounding, and are those funds drawing interest?
Are PG&E costs still built into the rate base and how does this affect their profit and loss results? Do the costs increase as the gas and electricity move through PG& E subsidiaries? Do employees get duplicate payments from subsidiaries?
Does PG&E write off the costs of their facilities from their tax bills to local, state and federal governments? Is there duplication of any write offs?
Does PG&E promptly replace or refurbish any facilities which have been written off at the end of their useful period? Are the power poles written off after fifteen years with a nail showing installation date? Won’t rotten poles fall over in strong winds and quakes?
Will PG&E’s facilities be out of service after a really big earthquake? Was this overlooked in the rush toward deregulation?
Finally, what is PG&E’s attitude toward local firms that want their own cogeneration (on-site power generation) facilities? Has PG&E discouraged cogeneration, which gets double use of energy for electricity and for heating and/or air conditioning? Don’t cogeneration sites function better after an earthquake and avoid the line loss of carrying electricity long distances? Don’t countries like Germany and Sweden, generate 35 to 50 percent of their electricity right on site with lower costs?
Answers to these questions are needed to understand PG&E’s situation.
Charles L. Smith
Berkeley
Kudos for local utility research
The Daily Planet received this letter to the Berkeley City Council: I want to express my support and respect for your 8-1 decision last night in regard to Municipal Utility Services. The research by the Energy Commission will certainly tell us what the pros and cons are for our city to take control of its electrical power. I thank Lina Maio for her proposal on this. If any city can overcome obstacles to benefit its citizens, Berkeley is the one to do it.
While this utility crisis is more severe for some people than others, it is a crisis for most of us in some way. People nowadays have additional hardships: Increased housing costs, taxes, HMO payments, increased transportation costs, after school care for children, college costs, medicines and medical care costs not covered by insurance, etc.
Being comfortable in one’s own home is a right, not a privilege. I was absolutely shocked at Polly Armstrong’s remark that she would vote against the research as “Berkeley has trouble dealing with what we have on our plate and we don’t need to be an energy company.” Five minutes later she went on at length to praise the Arts on Addison St. - theater companies, restaurants with music and other forms of entertainment with ample city funding and support for this privilege.
I am in district eight and I doubt that my neighbors would be so blatantly disrespectful and unconscious of the majority of citizens here. I believe that district eight would support the research to see if it was feasible for Berkeley to have its own municipal utility service.
I understand that several cities have established their own service and each can be contacted to see how they did it. I would urge Polly Armstrong to join the city council and keep in mind that her district does have a cross section including fixed incomes, senior residents, college students, retired people, fully-employed households, high house payments and taxes, after school child care, etc.
Thank you again.
Jae Scharlin
Berkeley
Missed the point
Editor:
I am surprised, Editor Scherr, that you allowed your reporter to miss the point in his reporting of the resolution to support the City Council boycott against the Pasand Madras restaurant on Dec. 19. The vote was 7 - 2!
The most important issue that escaped your reporter’s attention is that of global sex slavery. Never once did your reporter bring the following to the attention of your readers: The U.S. State Department issued a report in 1999 that at least 50,000 women from Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe are being sold as sex slaves and laborers each year into the U.S. Over two million are forced into sex slavery worldwide.
Trafficking in women and girls for the purpose of sexual exploitation in the form of prostitution, “escorts,” “mail order brides,” and pornography is the favored illegal trade activity, now replacing even drug trafficking.
These women are deceived by traffickers into leaving their countries, believing they will be offered work, and end up living in slave conditions, causing many to be injured and die. Sex trafficking harms women of all races and ethnic groups.
Here was your chance to reveal this heinous crime against women to all your readers and you chose to support this man.
BJ Miller
Berkeley
