Opinion

It wasn’t easy, but the Daily Planet managed to get an advance look at the Planning Commission’s agenda and packet for Wednesday. Among the items we noticed was a proposal from the planning director to raise fees on most planning and zoning permits by 10 percent “to cover higher cost-of-living, equity and fringe benefit rates.” Also, he wants to place a 15 percent surcharge on discretionary applications to pay for “the cost to maintain the General Plan and the Zoning Ordinance.” -more-

Looking across the bay from Berkeley to the drama around District Attorney Kamala Harris’s decision not to seek the death penalty for the young tough accused of killing an undercover San Francisco police officer, I am struck by how much times have changed, and at the same time how much things remain the same. A central argument of the early suffragists was that when women had the vote and were elected to public office their decisions would be more humane and thoughtful. From my perspective, Kamala Harris seems to embody that image of the woman as leader: humane, because she recognizes that nothing would be gained by executing a young person who seems to have acted without premeditation, using a weapon he should never have been able to buy, against a challenger that he may not even have known was a police officer; thoughtful, because seeking the death penalty would be an expensive and pointless symbolic gesture, since San Francisco (as well as Alameda County) juries almost never vote for death sentences. -more-