Public Comment

There is a lot converging: the arrival of summer, the City budget, severe drought consuming much of the west https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/ and of course politics. 

My week started with the screening of the film Invisible Hand, about Grants Township, Pennsylvania, which adopted a Home Rule Charter (local constitution) in 2015 which banned fracking by waste water injection wells and recognized the rights of nature. The Rights of Nature Movement holds that a river or watershed or ecosystem shall be granted personhood in the court of law and shall be provided with legal standing to defend itself: That nature holds inalienable rights. https://www.invisiblehandfilm.com/what-are-rights-of-nature/ 

Only one Berkeley council member requested registration to watch the Rights of Nature film online, Kate Harrison. In the Q&A with the directors Melissa Troutman and Joshua Pribanic, Harrison commented that her council colleagues sat in stunned silence at the Berkeley City Council meeting [March 30,2021]where it was assserted that nature could have rights and that people would be able to sue on that. 

“Stunned silence” should not be a shock, though recognizing being a part of nature rather than the master of it would be a paradigm shift. It would open to question the twisted logic justifying covering the city with cement and hardscape and garden centers filled with alien plants threatening local ecosystems. 

I am making my own adjustments in my thinking about the ecosystem in which we live. My recent readings of Douglas W. Tallamy are charting a new course. 

Tallamy closes his book Bringing Nature Home How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants so clearly here: 

“I have attempted to make several points in this book, but they all converge on a common theme: we humans have disrupted natural habitats in so many ways and in so many places that the future of our nation’s biodiversity is dim unless we start to share the places in which we live - our cities and, to an even greater extent our suburbs-with the plants and animals that evolved there…If we continue to landscape predominantly with alien plants that are toxic to insects...we may witness extinction on a scale that exceeds what occurred when a meteor struck the Yucatan peninsula at the end of the Cretaceous period.” (the mass extinction that ended age of the dinosaurs) [emphasis added] 

As a City Council resolution, acknowledging the rights of nature would have been an aspirational statement tied to number 7 in the City of Berkeley Strategic Plan Long-Term Goals, “Be a global leader in addressing climate change, advancing environmental justice, and protecting the environment.” 

Looking at the Gehl consultants’ plan for the Berkeley Civic Center park and surroundings, I have to wonder if any of it considers local ecosystems. Gehl is the consulting group hired for $370,000 to develop a plan for the Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall, the Veterans’ Building and Civic Center [AKA Martin Luther King or Provo ] Park. We should hope that Item 13 in the June 1 council agenda, $200,000 for the Civic Center plan, isn’t more money down the hole of consultants that failed to do the most critical piece of their assignment, a current thorough seismic assessment of the Maudelle Shirek Building and the Veterans Center. 

The Community for a Cultural Civic Center (CCCC) received the preliminary seismic report from Tipping Engineering May 20^th. That assessment happened because of actions by two of us, myself and John Caner. I found the holes in the Gehl seismic review and initiated the conversation. John Caner picked up the ball from there and made all the contacts and connections even raised matching money that resulted in Tipping Engineering performing the seismic studies. This was a big lift to fill the gap left by the city’s generously paid consultants. 

Nature doesn’t have any standing in the mass of housing bills grabbing our attention over the last weeks and days. The Scott Wiener and Toni Atkins Senate Bill 9 removes local control of land use, does not add affordable housing and instead encourages speculation and gentrification. SB 10 opens neighborhoods to unchecked demolition and speculation. SB 478 allows 2 – 10 units to be built on tiny lots of 1200 sq ft. SB 55 prohibits development in high-fire hazard severity areas, but allows bigger multi-unit buildings in fire-prone areas. Our own State Senator Nancy Skinner has her hands-on SB 8, which slashes public hearings and extends previous Senate Bill 330, which was supposed to sunset, and SB 290, which cuts down affordability requirements in Density Bonus law, 

All of these “build” bills, all supported by the development industry, represent denial of the extreme drought capturing most of California and the exceptional drought, the step beyond extreme, covering large swaths of the state including the Bay Area. We can expect that with another year of fires coupled with the trend to remote work, the lure of densely packed overpriced California housing may wane or even slide, as described in this article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune: https://www.startribune.com/scramble-for-twin-cities-houses-faces-additional-challenge-out-of-state-buyers/600057698/ 

All of this densification by demolition and building means the loss of urban green space, habitat, trees and the tree canopy which is so necessary to mitigate the heat island effect and provide habitat. Ginkgo trees, for example, which are alien to our local environment and support fewer than five species, are appearing as new plantings in the Berkeley flats. They take up land space from trees that support native species. 

Next time you go to a garden center, ask for California local native plants and then ask how many and what species of insects, birds and pollinators each plant supports as you make your choices. Better yet, check https://calscape.org/ before you shop. 

Commissions – the Saga of shrinking the number of commissions continues 

While it looks like an impossible uphill climb, with Councilmembers Droste, Kesarwani, Robinson and Arreguin signing on as sponsors and Hahn giving her nod of approval at the Agenda Committee, we should not stand by and let the reorganization of the commissions move forward on June 15 without resistance. This is not to say there is no need for improvement, but the accomplishments of the commissions have a great deal to do with who their members are, and leadership matters. 

Droste narrowed her reorganizing focus on the cost of staff time and ignored the expertise and contributions of commissioners. The most troublesome recommendations are: 

The Commission on Climate and the Environment, which would merge the Zero Waste Commission, the Energy Commission, the Community Environment Advisory Commission and the Animal Care Commission. All but the Animal Care Commission have turned out significant environmental work that would be impossible to manage in subcommittees of an 18-member commission. This would increase and complicate staff time and risk the loss of key experts now serving as unpaid commissioners. Zero Waste is heavily involved with the Transfer Station. The Energy Commission is key to the city’s commitment to electrification and becoming fossil free. 

The Public Works and Transportation Commission would merge two commissions which do have overlap, but are currently involved in major projects. Instead of merging there should be periodic joint meetings where there is overlap. 

The Public Works Commission has saved the city thousands of dollars in consultants to develop a paving plan and utility undergrounding plan. The Reimagining Public Safety Task Force and BerkDOT is about establishing a new Berkeley Department of Transportation to replace sworn police officers for traffic enforcement. 

The Sugar Sweetened Beverage Panel of Experts (SSBPE) focuses on grants and spending from the sugar sweetened beverage tax. It is, of course, related to health, but the mission is defined and limited. Rather than merging the SSBPE with the Community Health Commission the SSBPE meeting schedule should be on an as needed basis. 

Merging the Peace, Justice Commission and the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission leaves to question how the mandated review of block grants will be completed, how the requirement of representatives of the poor will be accomplished and how this merging will actually attain the supposed outcome of efficiency and cost savings. It might instead create complicated layers of subcommittees and increase staff time to sort it out. The other question is where the ongoing work of Fair and Impartial Policing and Reimagining Public Safety Task Force will reside. The work of these task forces and addressing systemic racism is not change that is accomplished in one election cycle or accomplished with an artificial deadline. 

The last piece of this already long diary is the city budget. You will have an opportunity to see the mayor’s budget townhall on June 8 at 5:30 pm https://www.jessearreguin.com/, but I would suggest you set aside time to take your own look in small bites. The 484 page FY 2022 budget comes with lots of explanations that are a huge and welcome change even though the length of it and fragmented sections requiring lots of back and forth reading makes me want to shut it down and pick up one of my more interesting books in the ever-growing stack. If you expected a major cut in the police budget it is not there. 

Revised Material (Supp 3)
Presentation 

I like to close with what I’m reading. There are two books I read some time ago that fit perfectly with international and national news: (1) Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic by David Quammen, 2012. Spillover reads like a mystery novel. I read it pre-pandemic and was glued to it from the very first chapter. The book follows researchers as they track down the source of new mysterious infectious diseases. (2) Last Sunday the New York Times featured an article on declining population. I’m with Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth by Alan Weisman, 2013. Weisman writes the case for why we need a decline in population to save the planet and how to get there. 

My latest read and loan from the Berkeley Library is Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland by Jonathan M. Metzel, 2019. I highly recommend it.