[Editor’s Note: We believe that “if in doubt about how to vote, ask Margot”. She’s the best candidate for Berkeley’s Assemblymember. As such, she’s been to all the candidate forums, so she’s gotten a really good look at all the other candidates. Besides that, she’s been around a long time. Here's what she recommends:] -more-

Here are some reasons why you should consider voting for Kathryn Lybarger for State Senate.

Her Union Background

Kathryn worked as a gardener at UC Berkeley. She went on to head the union representing UC’s lowest paid workers, many of them earning poverty wages when she started out. As head of the union she took on UC and won, winning large wage increases for lower paid workers and improving their lives despite strong resistance from UC administrators. Right now our reps in the Assembly and Senate seem to see their job as supporting whatever the UC administration wants; they have supported legislation to overturn court decisions that have gone against UC. Kathryn has shown that she won’t be in UC’s pocket. From heading her union representing UC workers, she went on to head the California Labor Federation made up of 1200 affiliated unions throughout the state. Legislative action is a major area of work for the federation. Kathryn has plenty of experience with legislation, which is good preparation for someone running for State Senate.

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin, who is also running for State Senate started out as a progressive, but has morphed into a neo-liberal (aka YIMBY), especially in his second term as he positioned himself to run for higher office. He has accepted campaign contributions from the California Apartment Association PAC, funded by big landlords and developers of rental housing statewide, and by the California Building Industry PAC. His campaign has also received a contribution from the PG&E Corporation Major Donor Account. PG&E along with other investor owned utilities in the state has lobbied successfully to get the California Public Utilities Commission to undermine the rooftop solar industry. -more-

Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín has changed the slogan of his campaign for State Senate. For months, the home page of his campaign website featured this:

A State Senator as Bold as the East Bay.

But as of January 16, it said this instead:

Proven, Progressive. Problem-Solver

The change is regrettable. The old slogan invited parody, viz:

A State Senator as Sold as the East Bay.

In 2016, when he was still a councilmember, Arreguín could legitimately claim to be bold. Back then he had the integrity and the courage to challenge the growth machine. That year he ran for mayor and won as the anti-Establishment candidate. He soon had a political conversion experience and switched to the pro-growth side. All along he’s called himself a progressive.

In 2010 Arreguín’s predecessor in the Berkeley mayor’s office, Tom Bates, told the Daily Californian: “Nobody knows what the heck it means to be progressive anymore.” I commented: “Bates might have been exaggerating, but he certainly wasn’t complaining: his four-term mayoralty owes a great deal to the murkiness of the progressive tag, which, his demurral notwithstanding, routinely embellishes his campaign literature.” Now Arreguín is following Bates’ suit. Unsurprisingly, Bates has endorsed Arreguín’s Senate bid. -more-

After attending a few candidate forums, so you don’t have to, I offer you these a-la-carte suggestions for voting your primary ballot. Please mix and match, do your own research, and decide for yourself.

Anywhere I say “we,” I mean I or the consensus of the Cinque family, not any publication hosting this. I address mostly races that are realistically contested, and/or controversial, in our precincts.

U.S. Senator, full term and partial term: Katie Porter. With Adam Schiff in a comfortable lead, this race is really about keeping Republican Steve Garvey out of the November top two. Porter has by far the best shot at this. A progressive populist, she strikes the tone that most Democrats would be wise to imitate. Between her Mom-in-a-minivan persona, and her recovered-law-prof-with-whiteboard persona, she has strong crossover appeal. She flipped a GOP-leaning Orange County seat to get to the House, and we see her pushing either slot on a future Dem presidential ticket to victory. We share Berkeleyans’ respect for hometown hero Barbara Lee’s peace and justice advocacy. But at age 77, we think her 11 years in Congress (without getting a single bill passed) represent her peak. In candidates’ debates, she’s seemed somewhere between sideshow and lost.

12th Congressional District: Tony Daysog is the only qualified candidate for this seat. A longtime progressive Alameda City Councilmember, he has deep experience in the most important thing individual Reps can offer: strong constituent services. His responses to candidate questionnaires have been personal, humble, and well-researched – with citations and links. As for endorsement magnet Lateefah Simon, she was unqualified to serve on the BART Board in 2016, when BART unions recruited her to knock off a director who cared about the budget. And she’s spectacularly unqualified for Congress now. In between, Simon has served with the opposite of distinction – opposing safety improvements, and even illegally living outside the district she represented. In candidate forums, she’s offered plenty of preaching but near-zero policy. -more-

To anyone who knows what Berkeley in the 1960s meant to the history of progressive politics in the U.S., the significance of People’s Park is clear. That very clarity is the reason that UC, needing to play down their pro-war, racist, corporate ideology, now provides Chancellor Christ millions of dollars to destroy our park.

To believe that Housing Project #2 (HP2) at People’s Park is essentially anything but a means to erase UC’s imperialist, racist, pro-war history and to defeat the park’s living spirit of dissent requires one to ignore 54 years of UC’s attacks on People’s Park and the decisions of the administration that have resulted in HP2 being delayed two years and cost overruns of tens of millions. One can only conclude that the park’s destruction was always UC’s priority. From the bulldozing of the homes and apartments on the block that became People’s Park in hope of disrupting student activism, up until today’s border wall of cargo containers, UC’s role in the crushing of the Student Protest Movement of the 1960’s was too incriminating for them to bear.

One of the first indications that HP2 at People’s Park held some extraordinary significance, can be seen in the September 29, 2021 Capital Strategies Committee of the UC Regents (Item F3). The budget for HP2 detailed in that document contained a $23 M contingency for the cost of unexpected legal fees and “the cost of clearing the site,” read cops and lawyers. $23M is a considerable amount for an institution like UCB that is drowning in debt (see Memorial Stadium’s total cost of $1Billion). Yet the Regents didn’t think that such a huge sum for police and lawyers was sufficient reason to even consider building somewhere else. Such was the Regents commitment to insuring the final days of People’s Park. -more-

I'm writing to express my deep concern regarding the recent article published in The New York Times about the Modi government's alleged attempts to stifle voices at a liberal university in New Delhi. The article shed light on troubling incidents that raise important questions about the state of free speech and academic freedom in India. -more-

Comic Strip Strips Away Political Trickery
Stephan Pastis, a scrappy California-based lawyer-turned-cartoonist, is the cranky commentator behind the comic strip, "Pearls Before Swine." The daily panels (which appear in the Chronicle) feature a small band of animal anti-heroes including a rat, a pig, and a goat (with an occasional appearance by a bearded mountain-dwelling donkey known as the "Wise Ass on the Hill").

In his February 11 Sunday strip, Pastis dared to call out Washington's excessive military spending (and other political faults). In the first of eight frames, the character known as "Rat" struts out in a royal cap and crown before a tiny crowd of disgruntled citizens to address growing anger about: "why I spend all your taxes on wars and very little on your cities. How I have one standard of justice for street-level drugs and another for pharmaceutical drug dealers. And how I take cash and gifts from large donors, many of whom get favorable treatment… Rest assured these are all valid concerns."

With the crowd starting to grow restive, Rat suddenly points over their heads and yells: "Holy @#@#! What's that crazy thing happening over there?" With the crowd suddenly all looking over their shoulders, Rat pulls out a large wrecking ball and drops it on the mob, killing everyone.

In the final frame of the Sunday panel, Rat turns to Pig (who has been watching nearby) and imparts the following wisdom: "Distraction is the key to good governance." -more-

I am closing in on the mark of sixty, and I expect I will make it into old age. Additionally, I have retained my faculties, and I don't have dementia. This description is contrary to the prognosis I was given forty years ago at Kaiser Martinez, when I was first sick. It was believed that my prospects were limited. The doctor in his own mind believed he was being cautiously optimistic. But he vastly underestimated me, and he wasn't doing me a favor. -more-

In 1965, a Time magazine cover asked an unsuspecting America, in lurid pink letters on a black background, 'Is God Dead'? hiWhile the country stewed over this, the Middle East--from whence He first showed--was fairly calm, by today's low standards even placid. God may have approved; who'd know?

Today, Israel and Hamas--if the latter is seen as an explicit agent of a sovereign power (Iran)--may provide the ultimate examples of the separation of Church and State originally guaranteed in our Constitution. [The Separation Clause refers to an established national church, not freedom of worship.]

Both states are historically and culturally undergirded by religion, with strong adherence to triumphant faiths which embrace codes of earthly moral conduct. Such conduct, however, is strikingly absent in the current conflict between the two being played out in Gaza. A slaughter of innocents is ongoing by both camps, which also deny them sanctuary anywhere. They just happen to be in the way. Both sides claim the right to exist as the basis for willful atrocities, an understandable end for which the means are morally void. -more-

At the outset, emphasis must be made that criticizing Israeli policies against the Palestinian people must not be linked to antisemitism. My family in Iraq had very good relations with the Jewish community. As a member of the Interfaith Council of Contra Cost County, California, I have been cooperating with the members of the Jewish community and visited synagogues. The Jewish Voice for Peace informed me that I was considered as an honorary member of the group.

The war in Gaza was begun by Hamas, however as the United Nations Secretary General stated, the events of October 7, 2023 could not be separated from the developments in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict for many years. The western powers used their veto power to prevent the United Nations Security Council from dealing justly and effectively with the Arab Israeli conflict. Despite the expulsion of the Palestinians from their homeland, the Western powers did nothing to implement United Nations resolutions calling for their return. Yes, the United States was opposed to the British, French and Israeli war of 1956 against Egypt,h but did nothing to resolve the question of Palestinian refugees. After the Six-Days War, which began on 5 June 1967, the United Nations Security Council was able to adopt resolution 242 on 22 November 1967, (almost five months after the war,) and on the insistence of the United Kingdom and the United States, vague language was used such as the withdrawal of Israel from territories not the territories occupied in 1967, which allowed Israel to annex the Palestinian and Syrian territories. -more-

Buckle up

After multiple stops and starts, I hope to finally get this off my desk. It has taken nearly three weeks from my first day of COVID episode two (the first was Delta in 2021) to feel normal again.

I am still making up my mind on a few candidates, but I know who I am definitely not voting for.

If the Peace and Justice Commission had been on ZOOM Monday evening, I definitely would have attended, but I tuned into the League of Women Voters forum on District State Senate Candidates instead and then gave up on more meetings for the evening. In my biased view, the City of Berkeley is more interested in killing the commissions than in making it easier to attend.

At the Agenda and Rules meeting on January 29, 2024, I was actually shocked by the tone of the Director of Health, Housing and Community Services Lisa Warhuus’ comments on the merging of the Peace and Justice Commission and the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission.

The dissolution of the two commissions, each of which has fifteen members , and the creation of the new Berkeley Community Action Commission was on the agenda as a consent item for the February 13, 2024 city council meeting. Items coming from the city manager and department heads arrive with the header, a brief description and none of the documents, which means that none of commissioners attending the Agenda Committee to give public comment had any idea of how many commissioners would be on the new commission and the content of the new commission’s responsibilities. -more-

Renée Fleming is a woman of many talents, a great opera soprano, a thoughtful individual who cares about health, mental health and the environment, a graceful host during Met Opera broadcasts and telecasts, and a passionately intelligent advocate for the preservation of wilderness flora and fauna, including in our oceans. At Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on Friday, February 9, Renée Fleming brought all these multi-faceted sides of her personality to the forefront in a remarkable concert, the first half of which presented a multi-media hymn to nature that Ms Fleming made in collaboration with the National Geographic Society. This work was entitled Voice of Nature: The Anthropocene., which was also the title of her Grammy Award-winning recording with conductor Yannick Nézet Séguin for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for 2023, -more-

Worth Noting:

The week starts with Lincoln’s Birthday Holiday on Monday February 12 and Valentine’s Day on Wednesday. Look for meetings to be moved around from usual days, times and locations. The week ends with the 3-day Presidents’ Day Holiday weekend.

• Tuesday:
  • At 10 am the Solano BID meets in person.
  • At 2:30 pm the Agenda Committee meets in the hybrid format.
  • At 6 pm City Council meets in the hybrid format with item 12 on increasing safety for vulnerable residents and dissolution of the Peace and Justice Commission and Human Welfare and Community Action Commissions to create new Community Action Commission.
  • At 6 pm the Rent Board Eviction / Section 8 / Foreclosure committee meets at 6 pm.
  • At 6:30 pm the Youth Commission meets in person
• Wednesday:
  • At 5 pm the Commission on pdisability meets in person.
  • At 7 pm the Homeless Services Panel of Experts meets in person.
• Thursday:
  • At 1 pm the City / UC / Student Relations Committee meets in the hybrid format with People’s Park Update on the agenda.
  • At 5:30 pm the Parks Commission meets in person.
  • At 5:30 pm the Zero Waste Commission meets in person.
  • At 6:15 pm the Transportation and Infrastructure Commission meets in person with Woolsey-Fulton Bike BLVD and Shattuck–MLK bus stops on the agenda.
  • At 6:30 pm the Design Review Committee meets in person.
  • At 7 pm the Rent Board meets in the hybrid format with the vacancy tax on the agenda.
  • At 7:30 pm BNC holds a forum for the Alameda County Supervisors Candidates. If you miss it this forum will be recorded and posted on the BNC website.
• Saturday: From 9 – 11 am is the shoreline cleanup.

Directions with links to ZOOM support for activating Closed Captioning and Save Transcript are at the bottom of this calendar.

Check the City website for late announcements and meetings posted on short notice at: https://berkeleyca.gov/

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BERKELEY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND CIVIC EVENTS -more-