Public Comment
Letters to the Editor
CORRECTION
Editors, Daily Planet:
Please note that in an otherwise factually correct summary of our project (“Zoning Adjustments Board Weighs Use Permit Appeals, April 10), there is one significant error: This is and will remain a single-family residence. To my knowledge this has never been identified as a multi-family residence.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Lorin Hill
Architect
Oakland
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SUPPORTERS
Editors, Daily Planet:
When I first started to “be political” in Berkeley, Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA)—not always John Denton’s best friends—was the only political organization that spoke to my passion. Two very significant people came to my assistance, John Denton and John George and they were smart enough to see the potential of a young immigrant with a hot fire in her belly. I will never forget the time when John Denton signed my papers for running for council and John George was at the BCA convention where I was trying to run as an independent. The opposition in slate politicals was fierce and also the outcome had already been worked out in backrooms, a skill I have never learned. If it wasn’t for John Denton and the love that Ruth gave me , and the constant John George message “you are the one just do it” I know I could not have come close to what I have been able to work on in partnership with the homeless.
As I remember John Denton and his annual change bucket that he brought to Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency (BOSS) every year, sometimes in the hundreds of dollars, I also have to remember John George who put me on the first Alameda County Homeless Plan, it was a great plan that holds up to the bigger and larger plans of today. It’s my great respect for the two amazing and very different heroes of the homeless movement that tonight I bow to their grace, their compassion and the time they found to guide encourage and trust me.
Oh I know John Denton and John George that you are proud of me and I know that we don’t make them like you anymore, but we try to walk in your shadows as tall as the current politics will let us.
Ruth was like a mother, she realized and saw my loneliness and always found time for me, Josh over the years has kept me informed, thank you great family and thank you for great leadership. In my heart a flower is blooming tonight and the tears are of great gratitude.
All my love to both the families and more courage to those of us who have not mainstreamed and carry your legacy with pride and without shame.
Boona Cheema
Executive Director, BOSS
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MORAL
Editors, Daily Planet:
It always scares the hell out of my when I hear someone advocate public policy because it is “the moral thing to do.” It scares when such moral pronouncements comes from the far right and from the far left.
This country has gone down the wrong road more than once lead by moral crusaders of all stripes.
And should anybody disagree with such a moral crusade they are banded as immoral.
In the most recent Daily Planet (April 13) Fred Foldvary declares “taxing pollution is the morally right thing to do...” and Charles Siegel writes “there is a clear moral imperative to support Bus Rapid Transit.”
With all due respect to both men I may disagree with your viewpoints on both issues and be just as moral as you are.
These issues are certainly worthy of public debate and consideration.
But let that debate be on more practical and realistic level. Saying it is “moral” does not guarantee it will work.
We must be able to listen to all sides of any issue and not brand only one viewpoint as “moral.”
Otherwise there is no debate. And that is truly “immoral.”
Frank Greenspan
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EARTH DAY
Editors, Daily Planet:
Earth Day...and person’s day. Please, people...so much toxicity coming from your cars and so many of us being so very ill with cancer. Somehow, in the very real urgency of saving the earth, there is not as much mentioned about saving us—from many diseases, cancer being foremost. We breathe it in but we can’t assimilate that ugly stuff. What is absorbed becomes very abrasive to how very tender we all are. Oil belongs in the earth. It is the blood of the earth.
Certainly we can’t all give up our cars but we can think about doing it. We can begin to think maybe we can protest by just not buying petroleum-burning fuel-driven cars. Like, striking against this unfair condition being forced upon us. Hybrids are good but solar is better. There is not one single need to burn even minute amounts of petroleum except to make the owners of it richer. The sun is really all we need.
My birthday is in April. Earth Day is in April. So, I have a certain momentum regarding life and the desire to reach out. Call me what you will. Don’t drive their cars anymore. The sooner, the better.
Iris Crider
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TIPPING POINT
Editors, Daily Planet:
I am absolutely convinced that if all of us who care about healing ourselves and the planet—both the light-footed and our more heavily stomping kin—focus our moments of muse on our ailing mother (as is happening and must simply happen more broadly), there will be a tipping point, and then, seemingly effortlessly, we will be in that future we dream. It will suddenly be breathtakingly simple. “Oh, yes,” we will say, as we bring our prunings to our neighborhood composting site, returning home with compost to feed the soil. “Of course,” we’ll think, as we return our communal electric vehicle to one of our local recharging posts; or as we help mount additional solar panels onto our neighborhood staging area to meet expanded community need. I mean, we have folks who know how to use mushrooms to clean contaminated soil, for goddess’ sake! We have the talent. So what’s missing?
There’s a coffee house owner in Kirkland, Washington, Ervin Peretz—have you heard about him?—who “wanted to attract customers who couldn’t afford Starbucks. So when he opened his doors last November, he decided not to list any prices. Instead, customers pay whatever they feel like for their drinks, sandwiches, and other menu items. So far, the ‘voluntary payment’ experiment is working, with the more well-off customers essentially subsidizing those who can’t or won’t pay more. ‘People want something different,’ said Peretz. ‘They want to contribute to something.’” (The Week, Feb. 23)
And just today, on KPFA, I heard that an herbalist, Pam Fisher, is opening a free—yes, that’s what she said—free herbal medicine clinic right here in Berkeley called the Ohlone Center of Herbal Medicine (540-8010), where you can be seen by appointment either on Mondays 1-5 P.M. or the first Saturday of every month.
Could it be Marx had something? You know the bit about “from each according to his abilities and to each according to his need”? Since we are one collective heart, is it beyond the realm of possibility that those with plenty of time or money or inspiration all on their own give a bit more to the general good than those less well-endowed and etc. etc. ... until... simply because if the collective heart beats stronger their particular piece of it will also?
“[People] want to contribute to something,” Whether the experiment endures forever is not the point. The point is it happened. It can happen again. It will happen again. Because the spirit is afoot. It’s running. And jumping on its back is simply too big a blast not to.
Pamela Satterwhite
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SIDESHOWS
Editors, Daily Planet:
Commenting on the “sideshow” statute first proposed by the City of Oakland five years ago, columnist J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, in the April 13 edition, notes:
“Neither the City of Oakland nor State Sen. Perata came to the legislature last year to ask for renewal of the original bill in time to meet the sunsetting deadline, which would be an indication that neither the city nor the senator thought the law was all that important.”
Actually, more odorous circumstances surround Oakland’s failure to track the sunset and renewal process.
The City of Oakland has lobbying firm Townsend Public Affairs on contract to take care of its business at the Capitol. Last October the owner Chris Townsend contributed $2,500 to councilmember Jean Quan’s campaign to pass Measure N, a $148 million bond issue to finance a new palace library downtown. Why would Townsend, headquartered in Irvine, care this much about an Oakland library building? In any event, the city and its contracted lobbyist dropped the ball on the sideshow law. As a reward, however, the city just renewed Townsend’s lobbying contract without putting it out for bid!
Councilmember Quan accepted more than a dozen such large donations for Measure N from businesses holding or seeking city contracts. Whether you favor, oppose, or do not care about the sideshow law, the obvious potential for corruption should be condemned. The practice of soliciting city contractors for campaign donations to council ballot measures should stop.
Charles Pine
Oakland Residents for
Peaceful Neighborhoods
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OLD HAT OR NEW HAT
Editors, Daily Planet:
The Ad-hoc Committee for “Sunshining” Selection of Library Trustees, approved by the City Council on March 13, will have its first meeting today, April 17, at 5 p.m. at the South Berkeley Branch Library. Members of the Committee are Councilmembers Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington, and Library Trustees Ying Lee and Susan Kupfer, whose first four year term expires May 13.
The City Charter gives the authority to the City Council to appoint Library Trustees. However, the practice for some years has been for the council to rubber-stamp the recommendation of the Library Trustees’ Board for successive Trustees including automatic reappointment of a first-term trustee. This practice has been criticized by many community members. It is felt the City Council should take back its power of appointment and bring new life and outlook into the governance of the Library.
Trustee and chair Susan Kupfer’s first four-year appointment ends on May 13. Is it not a conflict of interest for her to be a member of the committee considering the process for the selection of trustees, when the very next day the Board of Library Trustees will be deciding whether to reappoint her for a second term or appoint a new trustee? Should not the City Council call for applications and review prospective applicants, one of whom is Pat Cody? Attend the committee meeting at 5 p.m. today, and the trustees’ meeting tomorrow at 7 p.m. and express your opinion.
Gene Bernardi
Berkeleyans Organizing for
Library Defense
(SuperBOLD)
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FRIENDLINESS
Editors, Daily Planet:
At the present time of unrest in domestic and International affairs I see more tolerance and friendliness as the way forward. No two nations or people have identical priorities for developing their resources. We can express our need for safety. We can express our concern over the way other countries allocate their resources or manpower. But we cannot force other countries to follow our directions. Instead we have to begin a fresh conversation by acknowledging the languages, cultures and beliefs of others. Let us bring about peace by holding conferences and debates in which others can be honest about their fears, concerns and problems. We should let other nations run their own governments but deepen our links through shared conversation.
Now is the time to reach out to other nations in friendliness so that friendliness comes round to us as well.
Romila Khanna
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LONI HANCOCK’S
TOWN HALL MEETING
Editors, Daily Planet:
Loni Hancock put on a great town hall meeting about global warming; there was an overflow crowd. It’s a global problem, which needs global solutions, but Berkeley and the Bay Area may provide a great example to the world. Most of the speakers mentioned public transit as the way to reduce car use. Motorized transportation generates about half the greenhouse emissions around here. But after I left the meeting to catch my bus home, I saw the usual crowd of honking cars on Shattuck; the bus had to honk at one of them to get out of the bus stop. Berkeley has a way to go in transit use, but at least the UC students throng the buses.
Steve Geller
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THE CAR PROBLEM
Charles Siegel’s letter (April 13) is a destructive influence upon those who want to solve our car glut problem. He is so fixated upon his pet solution, the bus, that he went ballistic when I wrote in the Planet that solving our clean-air/transportation problem requires more than the bus. I in no way meant to imply that BRT would not be useful in solving the problems. I suggested we need to address how job specialization has led to situations where people travel to see a doctor in one city, a surgeon in another and a shrink in a third. Rather than accepting my call for policies that would keep travel short, promote local mom and pop stores, etc., he wrote to the Planet to accuse me of not understanding how the car is a horrible machine.
Charles, this is Berkeley, where we try to think through issues and build coalitions. It appears that you just want to get people into buses. Would it not be better if we tried a comprehensive approach to the car problem, and press policies which made people travel shorter distances, be their travel by bus or automobile?
Ted Vincent
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OUR OWN DER FUHRER
Editors, Daily Planet:
I would dearly love to know who are all those foolish people comparing our wonderful President Bush to Adolph Hitler. Have you ever heard of anything more outrageous? Where do they get those preposterous ideas?
We know very well that Hitler was a perfectly dreadful man, who started World War II by invading small countries, leaving them in ruins, destroying houses of worship, and killing innocent civilians.
Then, with his war going to hell in a hand basket, this obstinate man refused to admit defeat!
Oh, dear! Come to think of it, there are similarities, aren’t there?
Dorothy Snodgrass
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WARM POOL
Editors, Daily Planet:
Thank you for your wonderful article about Daniel Rudman’s book about the warm water pool, and your comments about the pool itself. One thing that was not mentioned is that the pool is open every Wednesday evening from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. for family public swim.
Mary Ann Brewin
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TOXIC DISPOSAL
Editors, Daily Planet:
Did you know that there is a safe, easy and local disposal available for a wide range of toxics?
The collection site at Gilman and Second will accept mercury products, household (non-automotive) batteries and electronics. More details are availabel from 981-7270. and 524-0113.
Two of the greatest threats to our bay and our groundwater table are mercury (thermometers and yes, compact flourescents bulbs) and unused medications that must no longer go down the toilet.
If the neighbors on a block can collect all thier toxics together, just one trip to Gilman will do the trick nicely.
Senta Pugh Chamberlain
