The sobering insight that climate change can accelerate violence should weigh heavily on the minds of delegates to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change set to begin November 30 in Paris—a city that, on November 13, suffered grievously from the blowback of the Syrian conflict. But there is another looming threat that needs to be addressed.

Put simply: War and militarism also fuel climate change. -more-

The residents at Redwood Gardens, the HUD (Housing and Urban Development) project on Derby Street for seniors and people with disabilities are again facing issues disturbing their peace of mind and sense of security. The owners recently hired a new on site property manager and her relations with the residents do not look very promising. -more-

Dear Council Member

You know the problems:

1. Giving over four million dollars in reduced fees to the client of an ex-employee.

2. Destroying the Shattuck Ten, with no certainty of replacement.

3. Failing to provide affordable housing.

4. Digging under the Shattuck Hotel.

5. Failing to meet the highest energy standards.

6. Favoring the 1% (or .01%) at everyone else's expense.

Do the right thing. Send it back to the ZAB.

Thank you! -more-

By the convening of Tuesday (December 1) evening’s Work Session and Council meeting, well over thirty hearings and agenda items before the Council, the ZAB and various commissions on the matter of building 2211 Harold Way will have been heard..well more than they wanted, or anticipated. -more-

I heard it again the same phrase that has been repeated over and over, “What happened to Berkeley?” What did happen to Berkeley, the city that is revered for the Free Speech Movement, Independent Living, curb cuts, Alice Waters, Edible Schoolyard Project, courageous stands, Anti-Apartheid and now is poised to adopt Ordinance No. 7,449-N.S regulating the use of sidewalks and Ordinance No. 7,450-N.S prohibiting obstruction of City-owned planters and trees? MONEY

If money isn’t center stage, it is never far away greasing the wheels. The feel of it, the lure of it, the power of it drives dispensing with public promises and city plans. It means discarding values and contorted explanations and justifications for unjustifiable actions. It slides underneath the apt description of Library Gardens, “a Wink and a Blink” whispered in my ear over and over at the city sponsored Adeline Corridor event.

The looming questions is, What should happen at 2211 Harold Way? There are stacks of studies, letters and comments. Some of them I wrote myself, but the real question and answer has evolved over months of observation and hundreds if not thousands of conversations mostly with strangers. Their names are on the petitions unfurled in council chambers. -more-

These are my continuing concerns about the 2211 Harold Way development
to be included in my presentation on Tuesday, Dec. 8th.

The City and outside consultants relied solely on information provided by
Mr. Rhoades and company. What proof do you have that this information is accurate? -more-

Dear Mayor Bates and members of the Berkeley City Council,

The City Council should not allow the developers of 2211 Harold Way to weasel out of their commitment to retain the ten Shattuck Cinemas theaters in the new building. They are describing the theater complex requirements as "unreasonable" (item 2, page 2 of their appeal). The developers made the choice to propose a building where ten of downtown's 20 movie screens are located. Those theaters are important to downtown economic vitality as they are major draws to the downtown especially at night and on weekends. City policy, expressed in the Downtown Area Plan, calls for retention, and even expansion, of movie theaters in the downtown. By choosing this site, the developers took on an obligation to include the movie theaters in the new building. There should no modifications in conditions of approval for the project that in any way weaken the requirement to provide movie theaters in the new building; if anything those conditions should be strengthened. -more-

On Tuesday Nov. 24, the City of Berkeley posted a notice declaring the occupation in front of Old City Hall illegal, and the occupiers guilty of misdemeanor disorderly conduct. This warning from the City to the homeless occupation, now proclaimed “Liberty City,” is unfortunate news.

As Peace and Justice Commission chair, I had been calling senior city staff people to urge a stance of communication and collaboration to meet the immediate health and safety needs of the occupiers. Requests such as sufficient bathrooms and garbage cans, first aid equipment and cooperative relations with police and city staff, would also serve the interests of the neighbors and the larger community. -more-

Dear City Council Members,

I am writing to you in advance of the December 1st City Council meeting at which you will receive a Police Review Commission report on the police response to the Black Lives Matter protest of December 6, 2015. The Police Review Commission has done an admirable job of reviewing the evidence provided to them by the BPD and its report on the protest response. However, the PRC has been unable to hold any individual officers accountable for their wanton aggression against non-violent demonstrators. Cops who assaulted people who were within their rights to be present on the street will not suffer any consequence for their actions. If you follow the link we have provided, you will be able to see for yourself how the police response, rather than protecting the peace and safety of our community, became the single greatest threat to us and caused numerous injuries through its beating, gassing, and shooting of "less lethal" munitions. Sadly, what also becomes clear is that BPD leadership escalated events at many points and we do not believe that the few incidents of individuals throwing objects at police officers justifies the mass gassing of hundreds of people and the indiscriminate shooting of munitions at retreating demonstrators. -more-

The gruesome killing of 17-year-old African-American, Laquan McDonald, in a hail of 16 bullets, including multiple times in the back, occurred more than a year ago. Chicago police officer, Van Dyke, who has been charged with first-degree murder began shooting 6 seconds after arriving on the scene. Laquan’s final moments were captured on the dashboard camera. -more-

The Obama administration has intensified its trade with Saudi Arabia ignoring warnings that it is guilty of massive war crimes and human rights violations in Yemen. The sale includes 84 new Boeing F-15 aircraft, 70 of Boeing's Apache attack helicopters and 36 of its AH-6M Little Birds. In addition, the deal will include 72 Black Hawk helicopters. -more-

We elected our City Council to represent the needs and interests of the residents of Berkeley, not to enhance the wealth of for-profit developers. Since five members of your appointed Zoning Adjustments Board and Landmarks Protection Commission have failed to represent our interests, a number of Berkeley residents have submitted appeals of their decisions on this project.

Before you address these appeals, I hope you will consider seriously the following questions:

1. Our city's most urgent need at this time, due to the unprecedented rise in housing costs, is housing for families and for middle and lower income residents. Why then are there virtually no affordable units being built? The city has approved scores of market rate development projects of four and six floors but nearly all are planned to be rented or sold at market rate or higher. Why allow the biggest of them all, shamefully out-of-scale with the surrounding historic buildings, to pay a reduced in-lieu fee instead of providing 20% or more affordable units? -more-

Dear Mayor Bates and members of the Berkeley City Council,

The City's Housing Trust Fund is grossly underfunded and the City Council should take action to increase the funds available to affordable housing developers.

Concrete steps the City Council should take are as follows:

1) Place a measure on the November 2016 ballot to increase the business license tax paid by landlords to 2.88% with suitable exemptions for small low and moderate income landlords, rent controlled units with pre-1999 tenants, units with Section 8 tenants and an exemption for new construction of the first ten years after construction. Basically, you should follow the recommendations of former city housing director Stephen Barton, who estimates that this tax increase could bring in $5 million annually. -more-

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 5:30 P.M.
Longfellow Middle School Auditorium
1500 Derby Street, Berkeley, CA 94703


The Council is holding a special Work Session on affordable housing. We activists must be there to speak. Let’s demand Council action on proposals made at the November 22 Affordable Housing Teach In. -more-

It’s been four long years since the people of Syria rose up to demand democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners. Bashar al-Assad’s response was to brutally repress the protesters, pushing his country into a civil war that has attracted local and foreign fighters, among them the terrorists of ISIS.

This long and bloody conflict has already resulted in the death of a quarter of a million people, displaced 8 million civilians internally, and caused another 4 million to flee. Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have responded taking in hundreds of thousands of refugees, and while Germany opened its doors to them, the United States has accepted only 2174 since 2012.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris, Donald Trump and the governors in 31 states have stoked up fears and called for an immediate halt to accepting any additional migrants. Largely ignored in the debate is the role the United States played in creating the crisis. The 2003 invasion of Iraq on false pretenses was the catalyst that led to the creation of ISIS from whom the refugees are fleeing. -more-

I want to find a way to make our homeland secure and peaceful. We have tried to bring security through war against terrorism. But our tit for tat strategy has failed. We are in a state of fright all the time. We want to bombard those countries where terrorists gather and train. In my opinion, it may be more worthwhile to spread vibrations of love and trust instead of animosity. My proposal would require our education departments to include instruction in the world's major languages, with special attention paid to languages of the Middle East. Our celebrations should include the holidays of other nations. We should support community interaction with international students enrolled in our colleges and universities. The better we understand other people through language and culture, the less likely that we will find their behavior incomprehensible, and they will find our responses unreasonable. -more-

Psychotherapy may or may not help someone with mental illness get some relief from painful emotions. In some instances the therapist believes the solution is to immerse you in your pain, in the theory that if you feel your feelings deeply, you will be cured. However, this theory doesn't work for every person with a severe mental illness, and can actually do damage. Yet there are still a number of therapists out there who practice according to this theory. As a result, persons with mental illness may become even more crippled than they were to begin with.

There are numerous reasons why this theory is flawed. The mentally ill individual likely doesn't have the ability to experience his or her pain in a safe manner. Dredging up deep pain can cause a fragile person to become destabilized. The idea that all repressed emotion should be brought to consciousness is a falsehood. No living human being, with a mental health diagnosis or not, is going to have zero repressed emotions. -more-

After several weeks of political brinkmanship, Portugal’s rightwing president, Anibal Cavaco Silva, finally backed off from his refusal to appoint the leader of a victorious left coalition as prime minister and accept the outcome of the Oct. 4 national elections. Silva’s stand down has ushered in an interesting coalition that may have continent-wide ramifications. -more-

It’s likely the US will form a new coalition to wage war on ISIS – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. What remains to be seen is who will do the heavy lifting in this coalition. Which nation will be willing to put boots on the ground?

(There are several acronyms used for the same group of jihadi terrorists: ISIS, ISIL – the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – and DAESH – an acronym based upon the group’s full Arabic name. While a tiny minority within Islam, ISIS is an ultra-conservative Muslim sect.)

In Hillary Clinton’s November 19 speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, she said the US goal should be “to defeat and destroy ISIS.”

Secretary Clinton laid out a plan to defeat ISIS: -more-

On November 20th, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4038, the Orwellianly misnamed "American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act of 2015" (SAFE ACT) to drastically limit the number of Syrian refugees able to enter the U.S. In addition, 31 state governors do not want Syrian refugees as do the Republican presidential candidates. The U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass it and even if it did, President Obama said he would veto it. -more-

Gioachino Rossini’s comic-opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia is universally hailed as Rossini’s masterpiece, and the public acclaim accorded this opera overshadows Rossini’s other noteworthy accomplishments, both in comic-opera and opera seria. Perhaps the popularity of Il Barbiere di Siviglia is what persuaded San Francisco Opera’s General Director David Gockley to revive this work just two years after a new production opened here in Fall 2013. Much remains the same now as in that earlier production. Many cast members have returned, although in 2013 this sparkling production featured alternating casts, while the current Barber of Seville is content with a single cast for all performances. -more-

We have a number of very important meetings coming up. Note City Council will be at Longfellow on Dec 1. The last City Council meeting of the year is December 15 and then we get a break in city meetings after December 17 until January 19. -more-