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Communication. It’s the buzzword of the 21st Century. 

Our top city bureaucrats made it a priority, having designed an elaborate scheme for “improved communication between staff and community.” 

It includes a million-dollar phone system and new bureaucrats. (OK – recycled old ones at higher pay. “Read my lips, no new bureaucrats,” one of the managers is said to have said.) 

While our six-digit management team trumpets a passion for communication and goes to bat for the funds to pay for it, the buzz was smacked in the stinger last week by what appears to be a countervailing policy: 

Bureaucrats, except tiptop department heads, may not talk to reporters unless they’ve got clearance from the city manager, the buzz learned. The policy’s been in place for years, Deputy City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the buzz Friday. 

Here’s how the buzz flew smack dab into the policy’s sticky web. 

I was doing a story about Santa Rosa lights – you know, those flickering things embedded beside crosswalks to remind drivers not to kill pedestrians. 

Some councilmembers, it seems, thought the state was going to cough up $30,000 or so for the lights across Ashby Avenue, but This story might not be among the Buzz’s most brilliant investigative Pulitzer Prize winning pieces. But street safety is something Ashby Avenue area folks care about. So I thought it was worth reporting. 

Along with others contacted for the story, I made a call to the city’s traffic engineer to ask how Berkeley’s making Ashby Avenue safer, since the state wasn’t paying for the Santa Rosa lights. 

The question was not one of those intended to ferret out any of the city’s deep dark high-security mysteries. Cross my antennas. 

Late that afternoon, the engineer, with whom the Buzz has held multiple interviews, returned the call. It seems he couldn’t talk until he had permission to do so. He was waiting for that.  

The story went to press Thursday evening sans traffic engineer comments. 

Then, Friday morning, someone from Public Works, where the engineer works, called to say she was working on getting permission for the traffic engineer to talk to me. 

This really grabbed the Buzz’s attention. 

The public works official said she was going through Deputy City Manager Weldon Rucker and as soon as he returned her call, the Buzz would get to talk to the traffic engineer. 

Well, the Buzz herself called Rucker to see what the deal was and learned he, the city manager, the manager’s communications specialist and others were out of the office at a conference or something. 

And Rucker was taking a vacation day Monday, as the Buzz knocked out this column. So, needless to say, we haven’t heard from the engineer yet. 

I’m sure, once we get the million-buck phone system, it’ll all be worked out. 

And the Buzz even has a humble suggestion to offer our fine bureaucrats on how they and not taxpayers can pay for the system: start a rent-a-Berkeley-manager program. Aim it especially at the University of California labs. The city’s loaned-out managers would set up systems to guard against lab workers’ release of state secrets to the Enemy. 

• • • 

Speaking about communication – remember those hefty wage hikes the upper echelon got a few weeks ago? Well, 4 percent is 4 percent, a staff report said. If the rank & file gets 4 percent, so should the big boys (and a few girls – oh yes, in case you’re counting, among the highest-up management team, there are some seven women and 12 men). 

The Buzz reached back into her fifth-grade math and calculated the raise. The 4 percent gives a $40,000/year person a $1,600 raise and a $100,000/year person a $4,000 raise. Just thought you might want to know. 

The funny thing about these raises is, after the Planet wrote about them, one of those close-to-six-digit guys called and said we’d got the story wrong. He and his fellow fellows were not getting automatic raises. The Buzz humbly flapped its wings in apology. 

An hour or so later, however, the guy called back to say he was getting a raise. “My wife will be happy,” he said in a voice-mail message. 

It makes you kind of wonder – if the bureaucrats didn’t know they were up for raises, WHO was pushing them? 

• • • 

And speaking of state secrets. Did you know Deputy City Manager Weldon Rucker was named interim city manager? The mayor said she was “appalled” that councilmembers let the secret out of closed session. What if the communists find out? 

• • • 

More secrets could lie ahead. One of the proposals for selecting a new (permanent) CM is to choose a committee of patriots – oops, maybe they said stakeholders; can’t you picture them with their stakes, or is it steaks; mistakes? – who would interview candidates and make recommendations to the council. The committee would be chosen by the City Council behind closed doors and their deliberations would be secret too. 

• • • 

Speaking of secrets, do you know the one about the café in City Hall? Seems that most the council didn’t. But if you’ve got to get your lattes somewhere, might as well go to City Hall. It’ll make it more fun for the Buzz, sipping java while trying to crack the city’s code of silence.