At 7:49, Mike Zint, coordinator of the "Liberty City" occupation camp at Berkeley's Maudelle Shirek Building (Old City Hall) informed his email list that a raid on the site by presumably local authorities had begun. A helicopter was observed circling over downtown Berkeley. By 10 a.m. the tents had been removed by occupiers, according to news reports. -more-

On Wednesday State Senate candidate Nancy Skinner made her debut at the 2016 Alligators' Ball, a Berkeley tradition which started in 2004 to benefit then City Council candidate Laurie Capitelli. For the full backstory, see Down at the Alligator’s Ball. Hosts this year were developer Patrick Kennedy, developer’s shill Mark Rhoades and Downtown Business Association honchos John Caner and Susie Medak.

Observed in attendance: Councilmember Susan Wengraf, now near the end of her current term, and announced mayoral candidate Capitelli, accompanied by attorney Steven Murphy, who is rumored to be running to replace Capitelli in District 5.

Proceeds of the festivities, held at a North Shattuck bar, will go to Skinner’s campaign treasury—she’s running against Sandre Swanson for the seat now held by Loni Hancock (who has endorsed Swanson.) Tickets went for up to $4200.00. -more-

Honorable Mayor and Members of the Council:

As a business owner who chose to invest in an office move to downtown Berkeley more than two years ago, I have observed the community discussion on the proposed high rise development at Harold Way, noting with distress how the proposal has divided friends of good will and intention, and produced little by way of community consensus. As a land use lawyer and teacher let me suggest a solution, not entirely sympathetic to the property developer's perspective, but valid from the City's perspective of meeting public needs.

More than all but two other privately-owned parcels downtown, the 2211 site deserves treatment as a unique community asset. That is because it and the other two sites alone have been reserved for the high-rise development authorized in the downtown plan. High-rise development is promoted, in justification of its inevitable impacts, as the means to provide housing, create housing diversity, and realize investments in public transit. If only three sites downtown are to be permitted for such expansive use, they should serve more than the wealthy elements of the community. The developer's proposal unfortunately is so confined. -more-

The project "objectives" are vague justifications for exploitive development. The benefits of the project are not defined. It is important to read the first project objective with particular care. It states:

"Implement the Downtown Area Plan and Street and Open Space Improvement Plan by leveraging the full development potential under Zoning Ordinance standards in order to generate the revenue necessary to provide all the community benefits envisioned in the Downtown Area Plan plus additional community benefits proposed in the project application and maintaining project financial feasibility [italics added].'' (p. 2-57)

Note the phrases in italics. The applicants want to leverage the full development potential, i.e., extract the maximum height and square footage they can get from the City in order to generate revenue for "all the community benefits envisioned" in the DAP and for "additional community benefits proposed in the project application." -more-

On November 10, The Berkeley City Council voted to reject a minimum wage proposal that was submitted to it by its own Labor Commission. All those who serve on the Commission are appointed by City Council members. To the disappointment of the Commission and the more than 100 labor and community people who attended that meeting at Longfellow School, the Council recommended instead a very diluted minimum wage package. Most of the council members have convinced themselves that paying workers a wage that exceeds the poverty level is a bad thing for small business and the economy. -more-

After at least 14 people were murdered and 17 wounded in San Bernardino by assailants armed with assault weapons, Assistant Director in Charge of the Los Angeles FBI Field Office David Bowditch told the press: "We do not know if this is a terrorist incident." -more-

Oil giant Exxon Mobile is under a sweeping criminal investigation in New York over claims it deliberately misled the public on the risks of climate change. Revelations have now surfaced that early in the 1970s Exxon’s own scientists concluded that there was a direct causation between burning fossil fuels and climate change. Students at Columbia Journalism School (CJS) in collaboration with The Los Angeles Times broke the story. -more-

Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available.

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Grace Underpressure has been producing it for many years now, even before the Berkeley Daily Planet started distributing it, most of the time without being paid, and now we'd like you to show your appreciation by using the button below to send her money.

This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! -more-

An open letter to my District 8 councilmember, Lori Droste, sent upon receiving her newsletter this morning:

Lori: This time I am truly shocked that you have appointed to a key commission a person who is a spokesman for San Francisco BARF. Just in case you don't know what Diego Aguilar-Canabal stands for, here's a quote of something he wrote on the BARF list-serv, which I read from time to time:

"Also, Berkeleyside should be publishing an op-ed I sent them soon, basically chastising old people for being dicks in public. (Oct. 1, SF BARF google group, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/sfbarentersfed )"

He also made fun of the campaign to save the downtown post office, which he thought would be a good site for an apartment development. (And don't you just love the vulgar sexism of his language, and the ageism of his sentiments?)

Do you think that District 8 voters will support your appointment of this person when they learn about it? As a well-known and long-time public dick in your very own neighborhood I somehow doubt it. -more-

It might or might not surprise you to know that most persons with psych disabilities are sensitive. Despite society's impression of us as brain-damaged, crude, and dangerous, many of us are none of the above and are at a loss concerning how to deal with the widespread violence perpetrated by the so-called "normal" people. -more-

I have never been a fan of Edgar Allan Poe. His macabre stories and morbid sensibility hold no interest for me. I can understand why, historically, they might have appealed to earlier generations, especially, turn-of-the-twentieth-century generations. To me, however, Poe’s writings are, if you’ll pardon the pun, a dead letter. Imagine my chagrin at having to sit through – then write about – not one but two operas based on Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. -more-

The proof of the pudding, they say, is in the eating, and in theater, the proof's in the show. This's where Berkeley troupe Anton's Well--which staged a splendid three-hander, Pinter's 'Old Times,' at the Berkeley City Club last year--scores in returning to the scene with Liz Duffy Adams' "costume comedy" 'Or,' also cast for a threesome, about the English Restoration and the first successful female playwright, Aphra Benn--in a show which displays perhaps the most tried-and-true value in live theater: Trouping. -more-

This was the first time I ever teared-up while reading a press kit. I guess this is just more proof that any encounter with Janis Joplin is bound to be emotional. For survivors of the Sixties, there are certain moments that are emotionally welded into the collective memory: the Kennedy assassination, the walk on the moon, and Janis Joplin exploding on the screen during D.A. Pennebaker's Monterey Pop. And I'm sure the impact of Janis' hurricane performances will continue to blast people off their feet and cause younger jaws to drop for decades to come. (Look at the Monterey Pops crowd shots after Janis has left the stage. Stunned, wide-eyed people smiling and mouthing the universal reaction: "Wow!")

Amy Berg's long-in-the-making bio-doc packs in a lot of "wow" moments but it also offers a backlog of "ows" as it follows the hardscrabble kid from Port Arthur, Texas on her roller-coaster ride from withering local ridicule to international acclaim.

-more-

In 1982 Peter Brook presented in Paris a scaled-down version of Georges Bizet’s ever-popular opera, Carmen. Staged in a gigantic converted sports arena, Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen was conceived as a drama for the masses, not your usual lavish opera spectacle but rather a version of Bizet’s opera that stripped everything to its dramatic essentials in order to highlight the structure of tragedy which Brook believes underlies the ‘Carmen’ story. Brook cut away about a third of the narrative, producing an 82-minute version of Carmen that was a model of dramatic condensation and narrative clarity. Brook also eliminated, or at least minimized, all the factitious appurtenances of “Spanishness” that have adhered to the ‘Carmen’ story, choosing to emphasize instead an archetypal primitiveness, a trans-historical quality, with suggestions of ancient Greek tragedy, that enhances the suggestion of universality in Brook’s tragic vision. In Brook’s Paris production of La Tragédie de Carmen, African drums introduced the Habanera music. -more-

(to the tune of Jingle Bells)

Chorus: profits first! profits first

civil rights can wait

all we want are shoppers

even if they’re full of ha--ate!

kick the poor off the streets

they’re just in the way

we don’t really need a law

to jail the poor today -more-