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To the Editor: 

While watching a few soporific minutes of the Berkeley City Council meeting on July 23, I was struck by the number of ballot items that propose to spend additional taxpayer money. The council needs to make some effort to bring an equal number of items to the agenda that will reduce spending. Let me offer two suggestions. 

1) We don’t need additional spending on pedestrian safety. My mother taught me to look both ways before crossing a street and to not start walking into the path of cars. This is all the pedestrian safety we need and it is a parental responsibility that should not require tax dollars. We don't need expensive (hundreds of thousands of dollars) traffic signals at small intersections like McGee Street and University Avenue. Traffic signals at such locations would actually harm Berkeley by impairing the flow of traffic on one of Berkeley's main arteries. A traffic signal at such a location would also harm Berkeley by encouraging an undesirable pedestrian presence on an avenue which is not and should not be residential. 

2) We don't need improvements at the park across from of City Hall. The trees there are fine and there is no need to spend on new ones. We don't need a new playground, the one we have is fine. The fountain might need some repair but we don't need a new one. Could we please use the money to fix potholes on the city streets? 

I could go on, but I hope the reader gets the idea that money in the public coffers is being wasted while our City Council keeps trying to get more.  

The majority of our council, with the possible exception of Polly Armstrong, seems to have no recognition of the need to reduce the expenditure of public funds. Why is the council so enthusiastic about encouraging a new tax for every conceivable thing? They seem to be pandering to a “tax the rich” constituency of students and renters who have discovered a right to vote oppressive taxes upon others (generally property owners) with little immediate effect on themselves, a process which is nothing less than legalized theft. Was it DeToqueville who said that democracy would fail because voters would attempt to vote themselves largess from the public coffers? I urge voters to say no to all ballot measures that spend even more money, no matter how meritorious these measures may seem. 

Walter Wood 

Berkeley