Editorials

Whatever happened to local government?

When we moved to Berkeley, way back in 1973, there were vigorous contests for the at-large seats on the city council and for the mayor. We’d spent the sixties in Ann Arbor, where there were also vigorous contests, with issues revolving around civil rights, especially the ultimately successful attempt to outlaw racial discrimination in local housing. Yes, this was the north and the 1960s, but housing discrimination was alive and well, even in a northern college town like Ann Arbor, and school integration was very much a work in progress. I had the privilege of managing the city council campaign of the first successful African American candidate since reconstruction in the 19^th century, and also, not so successfully, of working on the losing campaign of a quasi-socialist candidate for mayor, who did get about 5% of the vote in 1972, as well as Shirley Chisholm’s Michigan campaign for President, another 5%.

There were few if any town-gown disputes.

Mid-century Berkeley was livelier, on-campus and off. The University of California administrators have traditionally loved picking fights with faculty (the loyalty oath) and students (free speech), and also with local residents (taking and demolishing private homes by eminent domain)

Even without the university, local issues such as community control of the police and neighborhood preservation, which were supported by progressive configurations like the April Coalition and Berkeley Citizens’ Action, made Berkeley elections and council meetings lively. Gory details, which included recalls and rowdy meetings, can be found online in the late David Mundstock’s splendid history, Berkeley in the 70s. 

In those days, the “progressive” city council faction routinely sided with the citizenry in opposition to the university’s edifice complex, which was more often championed by the traditional Democrats who were then called “moderates”. Councilmember (later Mayor, Assemblymember and Senator) Loni Hancock was one of the authors of the Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance. Her colleague Nancy Skinner was marketed as an environmentalist when she was elected at large as the first (and only) student to be a Berkeley councilmember. 

How times have changed. Now Skinner is hand-in-glove with State Senator Scott Wiener and Oakland/Berkeley State Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, all of whom are busy re-jiggering state law for their developer contributors, so that cities and towns have less and less control over local planning. Loni Hancock is now married to former developer and mayor Tom Bates and is no longer a neighborhood advocate.. 

Berkeley is becoming populated with buildings which can only be described as warehouses to store the enormous number of students being added to the university. UC is engaged in unabashed real estate speculation, a national phenomenon in what used to be called “college towns” which has been well documented by Professor Davarian Baldwin. Here’s his take on this sordid story as it plays out in Berkeley: 

The big ugly box buildings we’re getting here in Berkeley are described as offering “market rate” apartments, but their developers benefit handsomely from the captive market which has been artificially created by their major investor, the university. 

And thanks to a spate of Wienerite legislation, developers and their elected allies are busily depriving local governments of control over how their localities are densified. Quotas are set externally, and if they are not met cities lose their power to set building standards. The result is that citizens are less and less interested in participating in the shell civic entities which are left. 

Berkeley, e.g., has four of our nine council seats (eight districts and the mayor) open in theory, but two of the incumbents are running uncontested. Nobody much cares.  

It’s happening all over. In a number of Bay Area cities (Danville, Lafayette and others) only one candidate has filed for a district council seat, so the election is cancelled and that single candidate is simply appointed to the seat. This looks to me a lot like the “elections” in putatively “democratic” countries around the world which are controlled by single parties and/or dictators. 

California in fact has become a single party state. Yes, yes, I’m registered as a Democrat like many of our readers, but I know that Democratic Party honchos behind the scenes are picking the winners before the election, and they don’t care who I want. Primaries are non-partisan and held at obscure times which guarantee low voter turnout. 

I’ve previously expressed my annoyance that Mark Humbert, the older White male San Francisco lawyer who’s running in District 8, where I live, already boasts the endorsement of all the big cheese Democrats who are responsible for turning Berkeley into a builder's gold mine, especially the incumbent. His glossy postcard mailer boasts a dozen or so technicolor headshots of anybody who’s anybody in the local Democratic uni-party (plus a couple of fuzzy dogs). 

His highlighted problems on this fancy card reflect his background as a homeowner in the Claremont-Elmwood neighborhood, the pricey east end of District 8: public safety, homelessness, small business. Problems all, not solutions. 

Nothing there about equity or climate or UC expansion or the Big Ugly Building Boom in market-rate dormitories or the shortage of family housing. 

Berkeley should do better. 

Now that I’ve also seen Humbert in an online forum next to one of the other candidates, I’m even more annoyed. Mari Mendonca is a Berkeley-raised grandmother, a woman of color, a renter, an articulate community housing activist and a leader in the Friends of Adeline group which is grappling with development of the Ashby Bart parking lot. Our self-styled progressives ought to be all over her. 

Watch this remarkable video that Mari made to show to Berkeley’s Housing Advisory Committee, exposing the disastrous mess that’s been made of Harriet Tubman Terrace senior housing under the ironic title of “renewal”. She's not a pro, just an active citizen with a smart phone who's trying to make things work. 

All the Planet can do to influence Berkeley's tepid city government is make sure that the key issues are aired, even though city electeds have less and less that they seem to be able to do to make things right. 

I’d like to offer the Planet’s Public Comment space for Berkeleyans for all citizens to report on what’s wrong, on the off chance that someone’s listening who can actually accomplish something to fix it if they're elected. But don’t count on it, given the current political situation. 

I was amused to see that one of the other online outlets offered candidates and their fans a total of one (1) op-ed of fewer than 600 words to support each candidate. I guess they know their readers. 

Well, here at the Planet we’ve got plenty of space and some pretty savvy readers, so as long as your op-ed submission is plain text or an attached .docx file we’ll be very happy to run it. There's no per-candidate limit. 

I personally think that readers’ eyes glaze over at about 1000 words, but that’s up to you. 

Email address: election@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Let us know what you think.