Public Comment

Berkeley did not set a new temperature record on Friday, June 10th, but plenty of other cities in the greater Bay Area did. It was still hot with the temperature nearing 90°. The weatherman on local news said temperatures on Friday were 20° above normal, making it another climate warning as this heat wave moves east.

Why, we might then ask, as the earth is hurtling toward the global warming climate catastrophe, with CO2 levels in the atmosphere at 420 parts per million, the highest levels in human history, is the city of Berkeley Public Works Department’s 2023 budget request for $1,000,000 for electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at the corporation yard off the table in the city manager’s proposed biennial budget?

At Thursday’s Budget and Finance Committee, Councilmember Harrison called not investing in electrification infrastructure, “pennywise and pound foolish”. And, that was before the posting of the purchase order request from Public Works to increase the money for diesel fuel by $1,900,000.

Item 13 in the draft agenda for the June 28th City Council meeting gives the new total to be spent on diesel fuel as $10,744,000. That is a hefty sum going to Diesel Direct West, Inc., for fuel for city vehicles. The report that is supposed to accompany the request is not in the Agenda Committee packet, so we can’t calculate monthly or yearly costs, or how many months are added by extending the contract to December 31, 2023. Regardless, $10,744,000 for diesel fuel is still a lot of money in a city that is supposedly committed to becoming fossil-fuel-free.

And that cost doesn’t include the damage to the environment to extract crude oil, process it into diesel and burn it in combustion engines.

This city can’t make the conversion to EV without the charging infrastructure. For all the bluster from our Mayor about being a progressive city, most days I wonder what our city leaders actually believe, because it is not showing up as action.

Each time I walk past the corporation staff parking lot at the end of Allston, I think about how that space could be more effectively utilized. At the very least it could be covered with solar to power up those EV charging stations Public Works is requesting. Maybe it could house RVs or tiny houses. 

Something interesting happened with the Council Public Safety Committee agenda posting. City Council meetings including Council Committees are normally posted so they are available on the City website after 5 pm on Thursday for the following week, something I really appreciate so I can get a jump start on the weekly summary for the Activist’s Calendar. In a normal week, going through all the meetings, documents and typing it up is usually around ten hours of work. 

If you read my calendar regularly you will note that I often don’t quote the agenda item title exactly. After I read the full agenda item, not just the title, I try to give a better description of the content so you can decide whether you think it is important enough to look further, send an email or attend the meeting. 

I also drop extraneous words. I listed the Public Safety Committee agenda item 2 as “Police Equipment” (that was all I had) with the note that as of 3:27 pm there were no documents. At some point on June 3 the original agenda I saw was replaced with “Information Report on Current Policies Related to Tear Gas, Smoke, and Pepper Spray.” Changing the agenda after posting is very unusual. 

As far as I can tell, BPD has been itching to get tear gas back into their arsenal and gave their case, with Captain Okies as the meeting presenter, that tear gas is harmless causing no injuries once it wears off. Councilmember Kesarwani, chair of the committee, said at the outset no action would be taken. Thomas Lord commented that pepper spray and tear gas are not benign and are potentially lethal. 

I have never been tear-gassed so I can’t give a first-hand description. The paper on “Tear Gas and Pepper Spray Toxicity” by R. David Tidwell and Brandon K. Will, in the January 10, 2022 update from the NIH, National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information sections on History and Physical, Evaluation, Treatment / Management, Complications and Enhancing Healthcare Team Outcomes https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK544263/ does state that “death after exposure is extremely rare, but reports do exist…” and then describes autopsy findings. The article also describes injuries as this is an article for the healthcare team. 

Those who attended the June 2020 City Council meeting when tear gas was banned may remember this was the evening when former BPD Chief Greenwood answered the question on what could be used if tear gas wasn’t available with, “Firearms, we can shoot people,” the statement that ended his career nine months later. 

Councilmembers Kesarwani, Wengraf and Taplin with Captain Okie went on to discuss their imagined scenarios when tear gas could be useful. Kesarwani pulled up an old committee recommendation with limited approval for tear gas that was never submitted to the full council. Mutual aid was a big part of the discussion. 

Councilmember Wengraf said she spoke with the sheriff. She did not give the name, but the Alameda County sheriff is Greg Ahern, the person who shared space with the Oathkeepers at the now defunct Urban Shield exercises. He is currently the second place finisher in the June 7th primary at 34.02%, with Yesenia Sanchez at 50.12%. His association with the Oathkeepers and their White supremacist connotations has been a driving force behind finding a replacement for Sheriff Ahern. This looks like the election year where the movement to remove Ahern from office may well succeed. The role of the Oathkeepers in the January 6, 2021 insurrection should motivate everyone to vote for Sanchez, but money and advertising have been known to swing voters in the wrong direction, even in the Bay Area where everyone thinks they are informed and above such propaganda tactics. And we still have White supremacists in our midst. 

Wengraf reported that the sheriff stated that he would not send aid to Berkeley as long as the tear gas ban was in place. Berkeley would need to use the National Guard, and that would require a 48-hour notice. With a very pro-police Public Safety Committee, I worry this will bypass a review by the Police Accountability Board and instead work its way up to the full council, where the majority will cave to police demands, but we shall see. I am always hopeful. 

This brings us back to the Budget Committee “FY 23 & 24 Budget Balancing Strategies and Priorities” document with Reimagining Public Safety funding requests listed page 3 as $4,871,462 for 2023 and $4,186,462 for 2024. The document is listed as Item #2 “Proposed Biennial Budget Discussion” for June 9, 2022. After searching through multiple budget meeting agendas and documents, nowhere can I find a list of what falls into that $9,057,924 for Reimagining Public Safety. That leaves me uneasy after the City Manager tried to pay for new carpet using Measure GG Fire Prevention funds before pulling it when questioned by Councilmember Wengraf and highlighted by public comment. 

The two stage readings of ROE are this week, Sunday, June 12th at 5 pm and Thursday June 16th at 7 pm. If you missed finding the website for the free tickets here it is: https://www.aeofberkeley.org/productions/upcoming-shows/378-roe-by-lisa-loomer 

What was really interesting this week on the impact of Roe v. Wade was the quiz in the Washington Post of how women’s lives have changed from 1970 to 2020 with women gaining agency over their body deciding when and if to bear children. The answers are in the table and it really says it all, how Roe v. Wade has made women’s lives more equal. And, of course, how those same answers give way to why legislators busy taking away access to abortion are filled with White men. The Turnaway Study which I reviewed May 22 is an excellent choice to read more about the impact of having or being denied an abortion. 

Agenda Item 8 at the Peace and Justice Commission, “Pass a Resolution Declaring the City of Berkeley’s Commitment to Abortion Rights” evolved into a lengthy discussion after the usual litany of difficulties from members who have trouble with their computers, using zoom, and other problems. The resolution is well meaning, but what came out in the discussion was how little was known by the commissioners regarding local services and access and how little exploration was completed prior to writing the draft resolution. And for that matter California State legislation signed into law and in process was absent from the discussion. The Peace and Justice Commission is supposed to merge with the Human welfare and Community action Commission sometime this year. 

The Police Accountability Board did meet on Wednesday, but my attendance was limited to hearing a fuller description of the police action and follow-up to ending the Berkeley High School student’s attempt to recruit other teens to engage in a Berkeley High shooting and bombing. There was less information from the BPD officer in attendance than from the local news sources. 

Thank goodness someone tipped off the police to squash this tragedy in the making. My question is where are the parents in all this and how was a high schooler able to start amassing the equipment to pull it off? 

Fareed Zakaria in his June 12, 2022 CNN show GPS and his Washington Post column stated how he was wrong to dismiss Mitt Romney’s warning during his 2012 presidential campaign that Russia posed the single largest threat to the United States, going on to write that, “Romney clearly understood that power in the international realm is measured by a mixture of capabilities and intentions. And though Russia is not a rising giant, it is determined to challenge and divide America and Europe and tear up the rules-based international system. Putin’s Russia is the World’s great spoiler.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/09/biden-administration-defeat-russia-contain-china-ukraine-war/ 

The book I finished this week is Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev. This is my third book on Russia. I also read Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick and The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder. I am nearly finshed with Putin’s People: How the KGB took Back Russia and Then Took On the West by Catherine Belton. 

In August 1991 my husband and I were in Greece when we heard from people on the street of the coup in Russia. The August Coup to seize Russia from Gorbachev failed, but by December 26, 1991 it was over and the Soviet Union was dissolved. 

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible is not the best written book and at times is hard to follow. Still, the overwhelming message in the post-Soviet-Union Russia is how propaganda, corruption, and bribery fill every corner and creep out as the oligarchs use their thievery to buy up property, super yachts and move their money into London, Paris, New York or Geneva. Even Cyprus is mentioned. The demise of oligarchs who lose favor is described in detail, how they end up in jail, lose their companies or worse. There is the occasional success when the right connection is found to bribe. 

There are connections and parallels to be drawn between Russia’s Putin and the corruption that permeated the Trump Presidency: his cabinet, his embrace of Putin and the Republicans who pledge their fealty to Trump, Trumpism and authoritarianism. This isn’t over. The January 6th insurrection is just one piece, and it was much closer to success than many of us may believe. We would be wise to see the warnings. I will be glued to the January 6th hearings and the CNN special on Alex Jones and “Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal” series. 

Sean Hannity, Laura Ingram and especially Tucker Carlson promote messages of victimhood, replacement and racism which fill the heads of their listeners and seep out into the mainstream, whether or not the rest of us tune into Fox. 

There is one person who is clear eyed, tenacious and unafraid, Liz Cheney. I expect there is little on which Cheney and I would agree, except this: locating Trump at the head of the attempted coup to stay in power.