Columnists

Any day now, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) will release the final environmental impact report on how the CDFA proposes to deal with the light brown apple moth. Concerned citizens who opposed the CDFA’s original plans to aerially spray the Bay Area counties with pesticides are assuming that the CDFA will attempt to expand its “eradication” program throughout the state and are gearing up to oppose it. -more-

Last week’s column failed to spark any immediate, community discussion on setting standards for judging an Oakland mayoral administration, but that’s to be expected. To paraphrase the Turk from the first Godfather movie, I’m not that influential. A Chip Johnson column or Matier & Ross item in the Chronicle, or a front-page story in the Tribune can set the direction of Oakland discussion for several days running. But I write an Oakland column for an admittedly struggling small weekly Berkeley newspaper whose influence takes a somewhat dramatic dive at the Oakland border. But we do what we can with what we have. -more-

I hate code books. Not code as in dot-dash-dot or SLWBT means I love you. I mean the building codes. Codes have loads of exceptions and don’t address each case with real clarity. They vary by year; by city, county, state and region; by building department and ultimately by the site inspector who enforced or ignored the edict. Yes, I’m very much aware of the need for codes, but the frustrating contradictions that a person faces when the code is invoked make me want to pull my hair out. -more-

I’ve written a couple of times about the western burrowing owls that winter at Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina, which seem to be in good hands for now. Other burrowing owls in the Bay Area are not so lucky. In Antioch, a breeding population of owls is about to be displaced by a developer under legally dubious circumstances. Owl advocates have rallied to protect them, but time is running out. -more-