Page One

Planning guru calls it quits

By Hank Sims Daily Planet staff
Saturday November 10, 2001

 

 

When Napoleon died in captivity, one of his prison guards, a man who had fought against the French at Waterloo, attempted to come to terms with his feelings through verse: 

Oft have I gazed on this wondrous man, 

But aye with strange emo- tions, undefined, 

Akin to fearful dread and wonderment, 

As if oppress'd by some mysterious power. 

 

When, on Friday, developer Patrick Kennedy heard that Gene Poschman had retired from the Zoning Adjustments Board, his reaction was considerably more prosaic. 

“Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead!” he said. 

Kennedy quickly followed this instant assessment with praise, saying that Poschman “knows the code better than anyone in the city – including the staff and myself.”  

But throughout his conversation with the Planet, Kennedy couldn’t refrain from recalculating the time it would take his current projects to be built. 

Considering that Poschman had opposed 9 of Kennedy’s projects in the last 10 years, often forcing the builder to go to the city council to have ZAB decisions overturned, Kennedy’s glee was understandable. 

But all Poschman’s supporters would agree that it was high praise for one of Berkeley’s most dedicated civic servants whose 14-year stint on the ZAB ended Thursday night.  

Poschman told ZAB attendees that he would soon be undergoing surgery to replace a hip, and that he would be unable to give the amount of time he had previously given to the board. 

“My operation is not life-threatening, but if I try to postpone it to attend more ZAB meetings, it would be,” he said. “My wife has threatened me, close friends have threatened me...” 

Kennedy’s acknowledgment of Poschman’s mastery of the city regulations is universally shared by everyone who follows local planning and development issues. Local builders have a whole stock of jokes, traded and shared with each other, that are designed to take some of the sting from Poschman’s legendary interrogations. 

Kennedy, the most high-profile Berkeley developer, keeps up-to-date spreadsheets that track Poschman’s voting record on major residential projects. 

But membership on the ZAB, as Poschman understands it, requires more than an intimate understanding of the law. The ZAB is where the lofty abstractions of the city’s building codes meet the nitty-gritty details of actual city projects, and Poschman devoted many hours each week to visiting the sites of proposed developments, to observe them first-hand. 

“He was just excellent with site visits,” said fellow ZAB member Deborah Matthews. “The information he would bring back was always different from what the rest of us would see.”  

 

An outspoken educator 

Before joining the ZAB in 1987, Poschman was first a legislative aid to legendary Sacramento powerhouse Jess Unruh and later the chair of the political science department at CSU-Hayward. 

Elihu Harris, the former state assemblyman and mayor of Oakland, said on Friday that when he was a student at Hayward he “majored in political science and minored in Poschman.” 

“Gene Poschman was without a doubt my favorite professor throughout my college years,” he said. “He was a major catalyst in my desire to enter public service.” 

“He was witty and sarcastic, and provoked exciting questions about politics. He made the subject come alive in many ways that other professors didn’t, and don’t.” 

Harris recalled one typical example of the Poschman pedagogical style that occurred after he had taken one of Poschman’s two-quarter courses. In the first quarter, Harris said, he got an A. In the second semester, he got a B and went to the professor’s office to talk about it. 

“Poschman said, ‘You’d better graduate soon, Harris – you’re getting dumber every quarter,’” Harris recalled. 

James Nichols, a former colleague at Hayward, said on Friday that Poschman’s influence is still felt on campus. 

“It’s hard to do justice to Gene, but he was a truly outstanding faculty member,” he said. “He was very dynamic politician who played a very active role in campus politics, and always kept the administration on its mark.” 

Nichols added that Poschman had a similar impact on his students. 

“He was wonderful for the very good students,” he said. “The less good ones had a harder time keeping up with him. But he was always very gentle.” 

Nichols said that he attended Poschman’s wedding to Ann Mester. Rose Bird, the future Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, presided. 

“It was the only time I’ve seen him at a loss for words,” he said. 

 

An impromptu party 

With ZAB chair Carolyn Weinberger absent, Poschman ran the meeting Thursday night. Seeing a number of familiar faces in the audience before the public comment period, including his wife and a number of personal friends, he reluctantly opened the proceedings to  

“This is my last meeting, and lots of people are here to make sure that I leave,” he said.  

Zelda Bronstein, a member of the Planning Commission, said that she first met Poschman in 1973, when he hired her to teach an American Government course. 

Many years later, she said, when Councilmember Linda Maio asked Bronstein to serve on the Planning Commission, she agreed with the condition that Poschman serve as her mentor. 

“I want to congratulate Gene for many years of exceptional service to the community,” she said. “I thank him not only for his knowledge and his patience, but his good humor which has leavened many an otherwise somber, sober and otherwise distressing public meeting.” 

Nancy Carleton, a former ZAB chair, remembered the time she and Poschman snuck up to the top of a neighboring building to check the progress on Kennedy’s Gaia building. 

“But the thing that I miss most about being chair was telling Gene to be quiet,” she said.  

“Gene, we love you, we’ll miss you, and we know that you’ll continue to be active in Berkeley, doing good things.” 

Another former ZAB chair, Kevin Powell, praised Poschman’s commitment to his work. 

“Gene reflects the best there is in Berkeley,” he said. “Everyone that came before this board got a very fair, very sincere and very wise treatment, and that’s a legacy that I hope will continue.” 

Shortly after the public comment period was over, ZAB member David Blake uncorked a bottle of wine and the ten-minute break the board usually takes stretched into 20, as friends and well-wishers turned Old City Hall into a place for an impromptu party. 

But before that could happen, the board needed to discuss upcoming changes to the city’s zoning ordinance. After 45 minutes of discussion, a new ZAB member suggested that perhaps the board should hold a special meeting on the subject. 

Poschman gently squashed the idea. 

“There is a special place in hell reserved for people who propose special meetings,” he said.