Features

Letters to the Editor

Friday January 14, 2005

DOESN’T GET IT

Editors, Daily Planet:

Bob Burnett, in his Dec. 28 article “Campaign 2008,” still does not get it. He fails to mention the obvious fact that President Bush won re-election because he supports the marriage amendment and Sen. Kerry does not. Eleven more states voted for referendums to declare that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and there is not now, and never has been, any right of a person to marry a person of the same sex. If two persons of the same sex live together we do not have to give them the endorsement or approval of their relationship that either governmental or social recognition implies. I do not want to have the right to marry a person of the same sex as I, and nobody else should have such a right, because all persons should have exactly the same rights and no person or persons should have any special rights. The Democrats will stay in the minority until they understand and accept this. Besides, President Bush and Congress and most of the country support the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rule in the military services, and that ought to be the rule everywhere.

Charles J. Blue, Sr.

Albany

•

UC LONG RANGE PLAN

Editors, Daily Planet:

As a citizen of Berkeley, the revised version of the 2020 UC LRDP gives me great concern.

First, the cost of building structured parking is at least $30,000 per space for above-ground, and at least $40,000 for underground parking. UC Berkeley doesn’t raise enough money from parking fees to cover the cost of the planned 1,800-plus-500 new parking spaces. Unrealistic planning, it would seem.

What is really worrisome, however, is the cost this plan represents for the City of Berkeley. Already in deficit and cutting millions of dollars from current services, how will the city pay for the infrastructure necessary to support the construction planned by UC? How will the COB cover the cost of sidewalk, roads and signalized intersections for its own plans, let alone those of UC?

With all the new students, staff, housing and traffic, more traffic and parking enforcement will be needed. Who will pay for these services? What will happen without these services, if there is no money to cover these costs? Maybe this plan goes too far.

While UC Berkeley claims to have adequate programs in place to encourage use of alternative transportation modes (it doesn’t), mention isn’t made showing how it will mitigate the planned increase in traffic in the city. UC Berkeley doesn’t have a plan to promote alternatives beyond what it is currently doing, which obviously, according to the university, won’t be adequate.

In fact, UC Berkeley doesn’t have a mitigation plan at all.

UC Berkeley should develop its own Transportation Im-provement Plan, and Pedestrian Improvement Plan, and should fund improvements necessary to make alternative transportation and walking to campus safe, accessible and comfortable, thereby encouraging these modes, reducing traffic congestion, and being a responsible member of the community.

UC Berkeley should be leading the way in encouraging their sizable staff to use alternative modes. Some large employers pay employees a stipend of $100 per month for use with any alternative modes they wish. UC Berkeley should, again, lead the way in this regard.

It is feasible for no increase in traffic, and certainly no increase in single occupancy vehicles (SOV) to result from UC Berkeley’s 2020 LRDP. But what does UC Berkeley say? That an increase in a mode switch from alternatives to automobile travel is inevitable. This is ill-informed and unconscionable in a time when global warming has become a real and present concern in every day life.

Mayor Tom Bates certainly did the right thing by opposing this revised version of the LRDP. We should all back him on his position, since we will all be losers if the plan goes through as written.

UC Berkeley’s LRDP will diminish the quality of life in Berkeley. The university appears to want to take over more land within city boundaries, while continuing without any fiscal or environmental responsibility. It is quite clear that this represents poor stewardship, spoiling their own nest.

Marcy Greenhut

•

A NEW YEAR’S WISH

Editors, Daily Planet:

I joined the generous multitudes of Berkeley’s voters last November in supporting a significant tax increase for our public schools. This tax increase is larger than all the city tax measures which were defeated. I hope that our community’s generosity and support will be appreciated and reciprocated by the Berkeley Unified School District in the form of greater cooperation with the community, concern and interest in the community’s needs, a broader welcome for community participation, and adherence to prior agreements made with the city.

I live in West Berkeley, near Washington Elementary School. Washington School is a Measure Y park. As a Measure Y park, Washington’s school yard is to be open to the community to use whenever school is not in session. Unfortunately, BUSD has taken on the practice of locking the gates, especially during holiday weekends, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas holiday. We, who live in West Berkeley, lack open space. There are no large parks, there are no greenways. What is available are schoolyards. Keeping the Washington schoolyard open is a promise that BUSD made many years ago. It is a promise, which BUSD needs to keep.

There are other Measure Y schools, but keeping the schoolyards open is something BUSD needs to do, not only for Measure Y schools, but for all schools. Schools are a community institution. For the 60 percent of us who do not have children in schools, schoolyards are a small way in which we can enjoy what our substantial tax dollars are paying for.

I enjoy walking in my neighborhood, which I do daily. I enjoy sitting in the schoolyard and watching children play. And it pains me to watch the disappointed faces of young children as they rattle the locked gate.

On another note, I recently learned that BUSD is planning to make changes in Washington’s and perhaps other schools’ schoolyards as part of the Measure AA bond money. However, the community was not informed of any meetings to discuss such changes. No signs were posted at the school yard. Nothing was mailed to neighbors. Nothing was publicized in the newspaper. Recently, BUSD took out one of the basketball courts at Willard, also without inviting any community participation, nor informing us of the proposal, until after it was done. Unfortunately, that basketball court was one of only a few in south Berkeley, and it’s now sorely missed.

BUSD: Your community includes everyone who is paying your bills, not just the students who attend your schools. I have lived for 32 years near Washington School. I urge you involve all neighbors and the community in any playground changes you are contemplating. You have now fenced off the grassy area for over six months, and the pond area has been dilapidated and fenced off for over eight years. Our schoolyards are very important to our neighborhood, and we would like to be involved in any changes. And most importantly, keep the schoolyard gates open.

Sally Reyes

•

DOWNTOWN’S FRIENDS

Editors, Daily Planet:

In your article about the objections to the Seagate Building being built downtown you give extensive coverage to the “Friends of Downtown Berkeley.” What does it mean to be a friend of downtown Berkeley? Some of the “Friends of Downtown” specific complaints about the Seagate Building underscore pressing issues for downtown and Berkeley as a whole.

The downtown plan called for a push to increase the profile of the arts district, as if on its own it would solve all downtown’s problems. We need to also push the profile of movie screens and clubs, ice rink and sports centers (the CAL stadium), shopping, business large and small. The “Friends” complain that the Seagate’s proposed three levels of parking are too much. The developers plan to build more parking than is required for their tenants. And the problem is…? They should be applauded. Extra parking downtown, underground, could be a solution for any new building downtown. It should be required just as low income housing is required.

How vital and viable is our downtown? It may not be economically sound to plan a revitalization of downtown and then just stomp your feet and say I don’t like cars. If we don’t want cars in our downtown but we do want the people cars carry we should provide for parking at the periphery of town with frequent shuttles in. In addition, more parking underground with easier access would work too. Perhaps one day, with the right kind of incentives, these three levels will be filled with electric and alternative vehicles. And, yes, we should make it easier to use public transportation too. But simply making it impossible to park downtown will not encourage the kind of active and vital economic and cultural downtown that Berkeley deserves. The “Friends of Downtown” also complain about the proposed height of the Seagate building. Our downtown is already a node of density but the “Friends of Downtown” want to limit the addition of a 14-story building next to an existing one. One might argue that a cluster of taller buildings is a natural evolution of a downtown and an environmentally ethical solution to the pressure for more housing. There already is a plan to increase housing downtown why not reduce sprawl too.

Finally, the “Friends” complain that the lower floors of the Seagate building would house lower income apartments and smaller apartments. They complain that this is discriminatory. Nonsense. Inclusion of these units is excellent public policy and needs to be applauded. My only complaint about this building is that these units are not available for purchase. Another housing need in our community is opportunity for middle income individuals or lower income families to purchase anything in Berkeley. But I think the plan at the Seagate for higher floor units with better views and higher rents to subsidize lower rent units makes sense. Supply and demand, public policy goals for lower income housing all intertwine here to the make the whole work, and makes our community better and richer.

The downtown plan has not yet gone far enough. We need to support the full vision. We have new stages but the movies theaters are not re-investing. The ice skating rink is on the brink. The university is one of our biggest resources but town and gown relations are strained. The natural tensions between development and preservation are perhaps failing in an untenable stasis.

The plan needs to bring people back to our streets. We are not yet there. The “Friends of Downtown” might just be one minority group speaking about what what should be the majority’s playground.

Peter Levitt

•

AMUSEMENT

Editors, Daily Planet:

Tee hee hee! I want to thank Charles Siegel (Letters, Daily Planet, Jan. 11-13) for providing some much-needed amusement, since running my “hate campaign against buses” is a pretty humorless job. But as they say, somebody has to do it.

Seriously, however, I ride buses frequently and obviously they are a necessary and useful part of the urban environment. But the truth is, although improving, they are still hard on the eyes, ears, and nose. Nonetheless, I was unkind to buses and I hope I didn’t hurt any of their tender little feelings.

Since we’re talking intimately about buses, however, I admit that I do not find 60-foot long buses pedestrian-friendly. Many other places in the world use flexible, non-monopolistic systems of smaller buses or vans, and we might rethink our own bus system. And the new buses with multi-level seating are apparently not intended for people with walkers, strollers, or bags of groceries—to say nothing of the frail and non-acrobatic. But back to BRT: Remember, a merely “enhanced” bus service will achieve two thirds of the ridership gain of BRT at only one fourth the cost—with no damage to local traffic flow or to nearby neighborhoods. On some things, I regret, AC Transit seems to have its headlights up its exhaust pipes.

As for the charge that I am only concerned about my own neighborhood, it is the constipation of Telegraph Avenue that disturbs me. A secondary concern is about traffic in Willard Neighborhood south of me, because Willard, unlike its barricaded neighbors on its right and left, has not so assiduously protected its own back yard.

As for myself, when I wrote my commentary, I didn’t think that BRT would cause much additional traffic near me. But now that you draw my attention to it, I realize that BRT would send thousands more cars in my direction—and I’d also completely forgotten about the massive loss of trees and parking. Uh-oh, now what shall I do? Does this mean that since I am affected by BRT, I must remain silent or be a NIMBY? Or maybe I actually have to support BRT, because the more we Berkeleyans hurt ourselves, the better it is for the planet.

Sorry, but I don’t buy it. The World Health Organization states: “Good health and well being require a clean and harmonious environment in which physical, physiological, social and aesthetic factors are all given their due importance. The environment should be regarded as a resource for improving living conditions and increasing well being.” The neighborhood environment is where we spend most of our lives. So I support everyone’s pursuit of a healthy and livable neighborhood, Mr. Siegel, and I’m sure you do, too.

Sharon Hudson

•

BUSH THE ACTOR

Editors, Daily Planet:

For years now, I’ve been waiting for George Bush to hesitate, to show some shame or remorse.

“We have brought freedom and democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq,” says George. I keep waiting for him to break down and cry at the tragic untruth of this statement—or even to laugh at this joke—but he never does. Could he be a male Stepford Wife?

Half the nation hates George Bush—yet on TV, he is perky, actually perky. He’s like a political version of June Cleaver! How can a man bomb 10,000 civilians one day and glad-hand church ladies the next? How does he do it?

He’s an actor.

Here’s an example: Bush gets up in front of the TV cameras and badmouths frivolous lawsuits. AND he sues a rental car company for damages in one of his daughters’ fender-bender where no one was hurt. Can’t he see the contradiction?

Example two: He speaks to America about “Clean Air” but the reality is that America’s air is now polluted, putrefied and cancerous thanks to George Bush.

Example three: “Our economy is booming!” sez George, just as the value of the dollar drops through the basement floor.

Example four: Bush gets in front of the cameras and plays the role of President like he is the star of West Wing or something but, in actuality, unimpeachable documentation in New Mexico, Florida, Ohio, etc. shows that Bush only “won” the 2004 election by use of massive vote fraud. Plus accurate exit polls clearly indicate that Kerry won.

How does Bush keep up this charade? How does he live with himself? Easy. He is an actor. Leonardo DiCaprio, in real life, is NOT Howard Hughes. He hangs up that persona when he walks off the set. It’s the same with George Bush.

When we watch Bush glad-handing women and children on TV -- and Karl Rove makes sure that we see this benign image 24/7 (You can’t even turn on the TV and not see Big Brother George)—and then wonder at the terrible disconnect between what we see and what we get, please remember that our George is an actor.

Like when O.J. Simpson was the kindly spokesperson for Hertz rent-a-car, Bush is now the kindly spokesperson for America. And, like Simpson, Americans have found Bush “not guilty” of what he does off-camera.

With George Bush, reality doesn’t matter. It’s all an act.

PS: Sometimes I think that having to watch Bush on TV 24/7 is Karl Rove’s way of torturing American dissidents. And his diabolical plan is working too! You want me to confess to supporting the Bill of Rights or being fond of the Sixth Commandment? I’ll talk! ”Ask me anything! I’ll name names! Only, please! No more George Bush!”

Jane Stillwater

•

STATE OF PALESTINE

Editors, Daily Planet:

On Jan. 4 you chose to republish your senseless and vile cartoon of a Jewish-American flag buried in the back of a poor “State of Palestine.” It is senseless, because it impossible to understand by what mechanism the U.S. has killed Palestinian statehood. President Clinton spent more time with Yassir Arafat than any other head of state in a ceaseless, though ultimately futile, attempt to help the Palestinians toward statehood. The U.S. is the largest single donor to the United Nations Palestinian refugee organization (UNRWA). Now that Arafat is dead, there is palpable breath of life in the peace process, proving what almost everyone involved has known for a long time, that Arafat was the main obstacle to the peaceful emergence of a Palestinian state. But your cartoon transcends the senseless and enters the world of the vile, because by replacing the 50 stars of the American flag with a single Jewish Star of David, the Daily Planet is repeating the old canard that the Jews somehow control the country, or the banks, or the world (choose your favorite form of hate). Stalin’s secret police made this villainy infamous when they first forged and published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which purports to be the minutes of a meeting of rabbis out to control the world. The Daily Planet might just as well republish that fine piece of propaganda in full instead of your cartoon to the same effect.

John Gertz

•

BIGOTRY

Editors, Daily Planet:

When there is the slightest doubt, most of us who have worked as journalists like to believe the best about those who don the mantle of the publisher, supposedly to better inform the populace. Correspondingly, although I was appalled when Becky O’Malley ran a cartoon several months ago depicting a Palestinian impaled by and American flag with the Star of David on it, I wanted to believe that O’Malley simply was one of the ignorant 10 percent who associate the Star of David with only the State of Israel rather than the Jewish people.

Sure, Hitler and the Third Reich correlated the six pointed star with anyone of Jewish heritage in utilizing it as a symbol of everything the German fascists found evil in the world. Today, the Arab press does the same.

But nevermind that nine of 10 people you might ask on a Berkeley street would first and foremost associate the Star of David with Jews rather than Israel; I harbored hope against hope that O’Malley printed the cartoon simply because she is that tenth person who more guilty of ignorance than anti-Semitism.

Alas, O’Malley marked the end of the news year (Dec. 31) with a rationalization of printing the cartoon and in the Jan.4-6 edition, republished the cartoon giving it prominence at the very top of the page. She did this despite the earlier outpouring of letters, e-mails and phone calls from both the Jewish community and many outside of it who found the cartoon profoundly offensive when it was first published.

It saddens me to conclude that despite the hurt and anger this odious image inflicted upon so many of her readers, that O’Malley would both justify and reissue cartoonist DeFreitas’ toxic age-old message of “international Jewish conspiracy.” In retrospect, I have no problems with those who sought to have advertisers desist from giving their money to the BDP for it is now crystalline that O’Malley is little more than a Merchant of Hate and by extension, her publication a promulgation of the worst sort of bigotry.

Dan Spitzer

Kensington

•