Public Comment

Where will the money come from? While City Council dismissed public concerns, they fell all over themselves last Tuesday evening, December 7^, in their enthusiasm over the prospect of the Berkeley Pier and Ferry. The idea of a ferry and new pier sounds so absolutely wonderful and WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority) and City staff are full of inventions of success. 

Where will the money come from? Will Berkeley have its own version of “build the wall”: build the pier and WETA will pay for it? That has been how the Pier-Ferry has been sold to us and maybe WETA will pick up the tab and Mayor Arreguin will turn out to be the hero. I think that is his plan, but attending the WETA meetings as I did again this last Thursday there is an undercurrent of a different picture. 

Thursday afternoon, I didn’t see any familiar names at the WETA (Water Emergency Transport Authority) meeting other than the WETA staff who presented the “feasibility study” at the Tuesday evening Berkeley council meeting when the question, “Where will the money come from?” was asked. 

WETA survives on substantial subsidies. Monique Moyer, WETA Board Member Director, noted that a tech survey showed no plans to return workers to offices any time soon. Also noted, in the future WETA won’t have control over fares. Funding was brought up over and over with one reference to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio funding the gap for NYC ferry service to continue. Stable funding and subsidies is an ongoing issue. 

The assumption seems to be that WETA has the funds. Maybe WETA will find a way to cobble together the financing for their strategic vision--they are putting their lobbyist on it, but reading the strategic plan and the WETA 2050 Business Plan Phase One Summary the pieces don’t quite fit together. https://weta.sanfranciscobayferry.com/sites/weta/files/weta-public/publications/Service_Visions_Business_Plan_Phase_1_Report.pdf 

The WETA 2050 Business Plan Phase One Summary suggests smaller more nimble vessels and a long list of problems like “ferries are one of the most polluting systems there is…” cost may be an obstacle to eco-friendly vessels, “…most facilities are inaccessible, hard to get to and don’t have good transit connections or transit services...” There were other issues, especially around the premise of ferry service and equity, like the high cost of ferry service versus social equity, current terminal locations and transit connections versus where low-income people are actually coming and going. 

I think of the state of disrepair of the street in front of my house and so many in Berkeley as Berkeley’s answer to permeable paving. The Director of Public Works has different plans and he has been making the rounds to the commissions for a ballot initiative to restore and replace Berkeley’s aging failing infrastructure. The question is, if we agree to open our pockets and pay for infrastructure, where will that money go? To streets, sustainable infrastructure or vanity projects? 

The agreement between WETA and Berkeley is targeted for closed session. Hope is not a solution, but that is all we have when it comes to Arreguin’s negotiating skills and that is where I don’t have much confidence. 

There were a few other meetings on my list this week. I tuned into the final Ashby and North Berkeley BART Community Advisory Group meeting on Monday. It felt like so much in Berkeley: Thank you for your hours of volunteering, now we will do what we planned. From June 8, 2020 to December 6, 2021 the BART Community Advisory Group (CAG) website has 29 meetings listed. Willie Philips summed it up best, “this process has been disappointing, it has not reached those people who are most likely to be affected…” 

Wednesday, there were too many meetings scheduled simultaneously and I am sorry to have missed Jim McGrath’s Parks and Waterfront Commission meeting resignation statement. I hope someone recorded it or better yet maybe Jim will share it. 

The meeting I did attend was the Le Conte, BNC, CENA meeting on goBerkeley Smart Space. https://smartspace.goberkeley.info/ This is a parking management program which received a $950,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission that would end 2-hour “free” parking for non-residents in Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) select areas and charge all non-permitted parkers a parking fee. Gordon Hansen, City of Berkeley Transportation Planner, said that charging an hourly fee for parking from 8 am to 7 pm and allowing paid parking for up to eight hours would drive down greenhouse gases (GHG) by preventing drivers from moving their cars every two hours. He claimed that cold starts use more fuel and said that mass transit (buses) are the answer. One responder informed Hansen that a cold start occurs when a car has been sitting for at least 12 hours, not 2 hours, and to measure the supposed GHG saving requires very sophisticated equipment. Another attendee complained that our bus mass transit agencies’ answer to such suggestions has been to remove neighborhood bus stops, including recently two on Telegraph. 

There are two meetings on SmartSpace this coming week, on Wednesday and Thursday, you might just want to go to the website to register with Eventbrite for the links. 

The Budget and Finance meeting was Thursday morning. No decisions were made and one can easily see on the proposed list that fixed cameras won out ($1,330,000, with ongoing costs not included) over the pilot electrification project $1,500,000. Policing wins, response to climate change loses. The final Budget meeting before the council vote is Monday morning at 9 am. 

This coming Tuesday afternoon, December 14^, at 4 is the special council meeting with agenda item 7 Resolution to Accept the Surveillance Technology Report for Automatic License Plate Readers, GPS Tackers, Body worn Cameras and the Street Level Imagery Project. The problem with the report is that there is no information as to how successful surveillance technology was in preventing crime, solving crimes or changing behavior. Wouldn’t we want to know if all this investment worked? 

Thursday evening was the Housing Element Update for council. This is the State mandated process to plan for Berkeley to add 8,934 units in the next eight-year cycle starting in 2023. The division is quite apparent between the desire to protect solar and the opposition, with the underlying message that rooftop solar is a tactic to stop density. Mayor Arreguin gave a rather testy response to protecting older rent controlled housing. Councilmember Bartlett had the best comment, “no rich people commute to work.” 

Objective Standards for multi-unit and mixed-use residential projects will be the subject of Planning Commission Zoning Ordinance Revision Project (ZORP) Wednesday evening December 15th. It will be one of the diminishing opportunities to provide input. 

Of the whole week of meetings, I was looking forward to the non-city two-day event, Sea Level Rise and Shoreline Contamination Regional Workshop with Kristina Hill, associate professor at UC Berkeley. Hill focused on the impact of sea level rise (SLR) on groundwater. As sea level rises so does groundwater. When rising groundwater is added to the picture the impact of rising sea level is considerably greater. With “capping” as the cheapest, easiest solution to toxic land contamination, rising groundwater underneath the “cap” is a serious public threat, leeching toxins from the site and vapor intrusion. 

Astra Zeneca in Richmond is one such toxic site where up to 4000 housing units are planned to sit on top of it. There are other sites around the bay where housing exists or is planned. Ms. Terrie Green from Marin City Climate Resilience & Health Justice was very vocal regarding the contamination and suffering in Marin City for decades. 

When Hill suggested there should be a local moratorium on building housing on top of these sites, one attendee suggested this just amounted to NIMBYISM. The build-everywhere promoters seem to show up everywhere. Grant Cope from DTSC (Department of Toxic Substances Control), when pushed on how DTSC would respond to the new information on rising groundwater and intrusion into contaminated sites, side-stepped answers and did not respond with the desired solution: that maybe decisions need to be reconsidered. 

Each week as I write the Activist Diary I include whatever book I’ve just finished. This week it was Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. The City of Berkeley voted in closed session on November 30 to opt into the nationwide settlement agreements to remediate and abate the impacts of the opioid crisis. Not listed in that settlement is payout by the Sackler’s family privately held pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. Purdue Pharma was tightly managed by the Sackler family, the drug company that started the opioid crisis through aggressive marketing of chronic pain as the undertreated medical diagnosis and extolling oxycontin as the non-addictive answer. The Sacklers declared the “addicted” in derogatory terms as having personality disorders and being habitual drug abusers and slipped billions into their greedy pockets and declared bankruptcy. Empire of Pain is a very interesting read especially the marketing of oxycontin. but you might need an extra dose of blood pressure medicine to get through it. The part I liked best is the direct actions by Nan Goldin and the group she formed P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addition Intervention Now). 

Purdue Pharma was dissolved in September 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/health/purdue-sacklers-opioids-settlement.html 

The book that I reviewed on November 20^, 2021 After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made by Ben Rhodes keeps coming back into view. Number 5 on the list of how Viktor Orban transformed Hungary from a democracy to autocracy in the span of ten years is: “Pack the courts with right-wing judges and erode the independence of the rule of law.” 

Ruth Marcus wrote on November 28^th the opinion essay in the Washington Post, “The Rule of Six: A newly radicalized Supreme Court is poised to reshape the nation.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/28/supreme-court-decisions-abortion-guns-religious-freedom-loom/ 

Was it just Friday, December 10^th that the Supreme Court decision on Texas Senate Bill 8 – the Texas Heartbeat Act was announced? I had to check three times it feels like weeks ago. The radicalization has started and as Ruth Marcus wrote with six conservative Supreme Court Justices, compromise is off the table, so too is apparently stare decisis. 

Where will the money come from? While City Council dismissed public concerns, they fell all over themselves last Tuesday evening, December 7^, in their enthusiasm over the prospect of the Berkeley Pier and Ferry. The idea of a ferry and new pier sounds so absolutely wonderful and WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority) and City staff are full of inventions of success. 

Where will the money come from? Will Berkeley have its own version of “build the wall”: build the pier and WETA will pay for it? That has been how the Pier-Ferry has been sold to us and maybe WETA will pick up the tab and Mayor Arreguin will turn out to be the hero. I think that is his plan, but attending the WETA meetings as I did again this last Thursday there is an undercurrent of a different picture. 

Thursday afternoon, I didn’t see any familiar names at the WETA (Water Emergency Transport Authority) meeting other than the WETA staff who presented the “feasibility study” at the Tuesday evening Berkeley council meeting when the question, “Where will the money come from?” was asked. 

WETA survives on substantial subsidies. Monique Moyer, WETA Board Member Director, noted that a tech survey showed no plans to return workers to offices any time soon. Also noted, in the future WETA won’t have control over fares. Funding was brought up over and over with one reference to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio funding the gap for NYC ferry service to continue. Stable funding and subsidies is an ongoing issue. 

The assumption seems to be that WETA has the funds. Maybe WETA will find a way to cobble together the financing for their strategic vision--they are putting their lobbyist on it, but reading the strategic plan and the WETA 2050 Business Plan Phase One Summary the pieces don’t quite fit together. https://weta.sanfranciscobayferry.com/sites/weta/files/weta-public/publications/Service_Visions_Business_Plan_Phase_1_Report.pdf 

The WETA 2050 Business Plan Phase One Summary suggests smaller more nimble vessels and a long list of problems like “ferries are one of the most polluting systems there is…” cost may be an obstacle to eco-friendly vessels, “…most facilities are inaccessible, hard to get to and don’t have good transit connections or transit services...” There were other issues, especially around the premise of ferry service and equity, like the high cost of ferry service versus social equity, current terminal locations and transit connections versus where low-income people are actually coming and going. 

I think of the state of disrepair of the street in front of my house and so many in Berkeley as Berkeley’s answer to permeable paving. The Director of Public Works has different plans and he has been making the rounds to the commissions for a ballot initiative to restore and replace Berkeley’s aging failing infrastructure. The question is, if we agree to open our pockets and pay for infrastructure, where will that money go? To streets, sustainable infrastructure or vanity projects? 

The agreement between WETA and Berkeley is targeted for closed session. Hope is not a solution, but that is all we have when it comes to Arreguin’s negotiating skills and that is where I don’t have much confidence. 

There were a few other meetings on my list this week. I tuned into the final Ashby and North Berkeley BART Community Advisory Group meeting on Monday. It felt like so much in Berkeley: Thank you for your hours of volunteering, now we will do what we planned. From June 8, 2020 to December 6, 2021 the BART Community Advisory Group (CAG) website has 29 meetings listed. Willie Philips summed it up best, “this process has been disappointing, it has not reached those people who are most likely to be affected…” 

Wednesday, there were too many meetings scheduled simultaneously and I am sorry to have missed Jim McGrath’s Parks and Waterfront Commission meeting resignation statement. I hope someone recorded it or better yet maybe Jim will share it. 

The meeting I did attend was the Le Conte, BNC, CENA meeting on goBerkeley Smart Space. https://smartspace.goberkeley.info/ This is a parking management program which received a $950,000 grant from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission that would end 2-hour “free” parking for non-residents in Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) select areas and charge all non-permitted parkers a parking fee. Gordon Hansen, City of Berkeley Transportation Planner, said that charging an hourly fee for parking from 8 am to 7 pm and allowing paid parking for up to eight hours would drive down greenhouse gases (GHG) by preventing drivers from moving their cars every two hours. He claimed that cold starts use more fuel and said that mass transit (buses) are the answer. One responder informed Hansen that a cold start occurs when a car has been sitting for at least 12 hours, not 2 hours, and to measure the supposed GHG saving requires very sophisticated equipment. Another attendee complained that our bus mass transit agencies’ answer to such suggestions has been to remove neighborhood bus stops, including recently two on Telegraph. 

There are two meetings on SmartSpace this coming week, on Wednesday and Thursday, you might just want to go to the website to register with Eventbrite for the links. 

The Budget and Finance meeting was Thursday morning. No decisions were made and one can easily see on the proposed list that fixed cameras won out ($1,330,000, with ongoing costs not included) over the pilot electrification project $1,500,000. Policing wins, response to climate change loses. The final Budget meeting before the council vote is Monday morning at 9 am. 

This coming Tuesday afternoon, December 14^, at 4 is the special council meeting with agenda item 7 Resolution to Accept the Surveillance Technology Report for Automatic License Plate Readers, GPS Tackers, Body worn Cameras and the Street Level Imagery Project. The problem with the report is that there is no information as to how successful surveillance technology was in preventing crime, solving crimes or changing behavior. Wouldn’t we want to know if all this investment worked? 

Thursday evening was the Housing Element Update for council. This is the State mandated process to plan for Berkeley to add 8,934 units in the next eight-year cycle starting in 2023. The division is quite apparent between the desire to protect solar and the opposition, with the underlying message that rooftop solar is a tactic to stop density. Mayor Arreguin gave a rather testy response to protecting older rent controlled housing. Councilmember Bartlett had the best comment, “no rich people commute to work.” 

Objective Standards for multi-unit and mixed-use residential projects will be the subject of Planning Commission Zoning Ordinance Revision Project (ZORP) Wednesday evening December 15th. It will be one of the diminishing opportunities to provide input. 

Of the whole week of meetings, I was looking forward to the non-city two-day event, Sea Level Rise and Shoreline Contamination Regional Workshop with Kristina Hill, associate professor at UC Berkeley. Hill focused on the impact of sea level rise (SLR) on groundwater. As sea level rises so does groundwater. When rising groundwater is added to the picture the impact of rising sea level is considerably greater. With “capping” as the cheapest, easiest solution to toxic land contamination, rising groundwater underneath the “cap” is a serious public threat, leeching toxins from the site and vapor intrusion. 

Astra Zeneca in Richmond is one such toxic site where up to 4000 housing units are planned to sit on top of it. There are other sites around the bay where housing exists or is planned. Ms. Terrie Green from Marin City Climate Resilience & Health Justice was very vocal regarding the contamination and suffering in Marin City for decades. 

When Hill suggested there should be a local moratorium on building housing on top of these sites, one attendee suggested this just amounted to NIMBYISM. The build-everywhere promoters seem to show up everywhere. Grant Cope from DTSC (Department of Toxic Substances Control), when pushed on how DTSC would respond to the new information on rising groundwater and intrusion into contaminated sites, side-stepped answers and did not respond with the desired solution: that maybe decisions need to be reconsidered. 

Each week as I write the Activist Diary I include whatever book I’ve just finished. This week it was Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe. The City of Berkeley voted in closed session on November 30 to opt into the nationwide settlement agreements to remediate and abate the impacts of the opioid crisis. Not listed in that settlement is payout by the Sackler’s family privately held pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. Purdue Pharma was tightly managed by the Sackler family, the drug company that started the opioid crisis through aggressive marketing of chronic pain as the undertreated medical diagnosis and extolling oxycontin as the non-addictive answer. The Sacklers declared the “addicted” in derogatory terms as having personality disorders and being habitual drug abusers and slipped billions into their greedy pockets and declared bankruptcy. Empire of Pain is a very interesting read especially the marketing of oxycontin. but you might need an extra dose of blood pressure medicine to get through it. The part I liked best is the direct actions by Nan Goldin and the group she formed P.A.I.N. (Prescription Addition Intervention Now). 

Purdue Pharma was dissolved in September 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/health/purdue-sacklers-opioids-settlement.html 

The book that I reviewed on November 20^, 2021 After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made by Ben Rhodes keeps coming back into view. Number 5 on the list of how Viktor Orban transformed Hungary from a democracy to autocracy in the span of ten years is: “Pack the courts with right-wing judges and erode the independence of the rule of law.” 

Ruth Marcus wrote on November 28^th the opinion essay in the Washington Post, “The Rule of Six: A newly radicalized Supreme Court is poised to reshape the nation.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/28/supreme-court-decisions-abortion-guns-religious-freedom-loom/ 

Was it just Friday, December 10^th that the Supreme Court decision on Texas Senate Bill 8 – the Texas Heartbeat Act was announced? I had to check three times it feels like weeks ago. The radicalization has started and as Ruth Marcus wrote with six conservative Supreme Court Justices, compromise is off the table, so too is apparently stare decisis.