Features

Letters to the Editor

Friday February 11, 2005

OAKLAND ANIMAL SHELTER

Editors, Daily Planet:

Kudos to Matt Artz and the Daily Planet for being among the first to write about the systemic abuses at the Oakland Animal Shelter (Feb. 8-10). Across California, similar abuses against animals are being carried out at our taxpayer funded animal shelters. As recently as 1999, our local animal shelter was described as “Berkeley’s dirty little secret” by an employee. It took political will, citizen action and staff buy-in to complete the transformation we now see at Berkeley’s little cinderblock building on Second Street.

The word shelter means “a place of refuge.” But in California’s municipal animal shelters, run mostly by law enforcement agencies, that description is laughable. The lesson we can take from Oakland is this: Police departments should get out of the business of running animal shelters—now. Cities need to forge stronger cooperative agreements with local non-profit humane organizations, and politicians should be listening harder—to the citizens who have been yelling about these abuses for years, and to the staff who work in these death houses, who are sick and tired of covering for bad management and political inaction. It isn’t nice to plunge a needle full of fatal drugs into healthy animals.

Civilian management, transparency in operations, a safe working environment for staff, citizen oversight, and a commitment to end pet overpopulation through spay neuter instead of euthanasia—these are the lessons—when will we ever learn?

Jill Posener

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FIREARM AT SCHOOL

Editors, Daily Planet:

The Daily Planet’s account of the expulsion of a Berkeley High School student for bringing a firearm to school in her backpack raises troubling questions about the facts, and about school officials’ response to the discovery. In concluding the student did not intend to use the weapon, the officials appear to have accepted stories of the student and father at face value. Campus safety required more.

The father’s claim of entrusting the teenager with a firearm to safeguard the weapon strikes me as an incredibly poor choice for a parent to make. But I don’t believe it happened that way myself. The student’s story of depositing the weapon in her backpack, and then forgetting about it, strikes me as equally undeserving of belief as the father’s story. If she had not shown the weapon to other students in some way, they would not have known of its presence inside the backpack. As for not intending its use, a firearm can be used by its mere display without discharging the bullet. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick.”

District officials with responsibility for campus safety should have viewed the situation from the perspective of the community which this student’s actions endangered. Even if the excuse offered were not fabricated, the student’s actions showed extreme disregard for the resulting danger to others. As presented in the paper’s columns, the district officials’ sympathy appears misdirected.

John McDougall

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GET IT IN WRITING!

Editors, Daily Planet:

Dear residents of the Derby Street/MLK neighborhood: Regardless of the outcome of the debate regarding closure of Derby Street, I can’t emphasize strongly enough that you get in writing some kind of agreement about the use of the new ballpark facilities.

I live adjacent to the Ohlone Park ballpark. In the late ‘70s before its existence, I worked for five years with city officials and a neighborhood group to create the kind of park we wanted. It was to be a peaceful, quiet green area in the heart of the flatlands. Since the ballpark was an afterthought and it did not fit within the model of the type of park agreed upon, we were promised that it would only be used for neighborhood use and small pick-up games. Signs were posted stating “No League Play.”

Beginning in the late ‘90s, the Little League suddenly started to appear. For another five years, I struggled with five different agencies and nine different individuals to restore the “No League Play” policy. It is only thanks to Marc Seleznow (now director of parks) that we currently have a moratorium on future growth of ASFU programs in our park. BUT—we still have spring and fall soccer and softball practice five days a week, making parking and quiet activities impossible in this neighborhood.

Mr. Doug Fielding is to be commended on his dedication to youth sports programs, but let me assure you that he has no respect for promises made or for the concerns of the residents in the communities that adjoin ballparks.

Carolyn Sell

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DERBY STREET

Editors, Daily Planet:

Residents of Berkeley who do not live in the East Campus area may well wonder why they should be concerned about the controversy over the proposed hardball field (see op-ed page exchange in recent editions of the Daily Planet).

The answer: If, despite the protests of the overwhelming majority of neighbors, this field goes through, the city and the School Board cannot help but regard it as carte blanche to do what they want in any neighborhood in Berkeley. That is the real issue here: Does the city and the School Board have the right to force a non-essential public facility on an unwilling neighborhood that has already made a major public contribution (In this case, by being the site of the East Campus and the Farmers’ Market)?

Residents who think it is not a good idea for the city and School Board to be given such carte blanche should write or phone their councilmember and state clearly and firmly: If the member votes for the closing of Derby Street (and hence for the hardball field) the resident will vote for the defeat of the councilmember when he or she is next up for election.

Berkeley residents, beware: They’re coming for your neighborhood next.

Peter Schorer

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APOLOGIES

Editors, Daily Planet:

I want to offer my apologies to Terry Doran if any of my comments on the Derby Field seemed “inflammatory,” certainly not my intention.

I must also correct his assertion that “both writers constantly refer to ‘a member of the school board’ without giving a name. I can only assume they are referring to me.”

I have searched the published copy of my commentary and find no such statement, no reference to any individuals except the Daily Planet writer Allen-Taylor, and my City Council representative, Max Anderson, both of whom I name. Furthermore, I do not know Mr. Doran, nor, to my recollection, have I ever seen him or heard him speak.

However, his error is unimportant, since he goes on to say, “We also do not want anyone to build a ‘fenced, locked, hardball field with night lights and electronic sound system.’” Assuming that the use of the pronoun “We” means that he speaks officially for the entire School Board, it seems clear that I got it all wrong.

No lights means no night games. No fence means no hardball. No regulation-sized hardball field means no need to close Derby. In other words, no problem.

My thanks to Mr. Doran for correcting my misunderstanding. My thanks to the Daily Planet for printing his official statement for the entire community to read.

Dorothy Bryant

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SPECIAL INTERESTS

Editors, Daily Planet:

Your one-sided commentary page on closing Derby Street for a hardball field illustrates how this special interest group of sports enthusiasts have been able to shut neighborhood interests out while advancing their back-door plans. Mr. Doran insists that he has no such agenda, yet he (and others) write a commentary piece attacking my neighbors for even questioning the closure of a city street in an already overly crowded neighborhood. So called “meetings” held were nothing more than rallying events organized by the very architects eager to build and profit from these plans. They came with plans drawn long before any neighbors were included. Does this sound like healthy community inter-action to anyone? If you are so community minded, Mr. Doran, why have you no respect for neighborhoods? Our neighborhood is already littered, congested, noisy and getting more so as time goes on. The school district cannot even maintain the area around King Child Development Center now. We have had to deal with rats and unkempt grounds for years; calls to BUSD maintenance have been unreturned. Why should we trust that you would suddenly recognize your responsibility after a field is built?

Additionally, Mr. Doran knows very well that night games and bright lights will come next; he’s not about to be honest with us quite yet. He’s learned, in his many years as a seasoned politician, how to get his foot in the door. As neighbors of East Campus, we look to the City Council to again show our neighborhood support in keeping Derby Street open. The school board should be ashamed for not understanding that respecting community includes respect for neighborhoods.

Michael Bauce

EDITOR’S NOTE: What the letter-writer refers to as a “one-sided” op-ed page was actually a response to a series of previously published commentaries from neighborhood opponents of the Derby Street plan. We have published every letter we’ve received on the topic in an attempt to air all sides of the issue.

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CORRECTION

Editors, Daily Planet:

David Snippen may wish to deny it, given the company he keeps, but he did indeed apologize publicly for the behavior of Sherry Smith, the previous chair of the Arts Commission, after she angrily tore up hundreds of fliers in the “arts district.” Many others witnessed his public apology.

The Pepper Spray Times, which takes great pride in its accuracy, will be sure to note for the record Snippen’s subsequent reversal, his enthusiastic support for flier destruction, and his clarification of free speech policies in the “arts district”. As for my “privileged” background, I do feel privileged to be of mountain Appalachian heritage, and to have been born in what many consider to be a slum in East L.A. Snippen’s excuse for making assumptions about my background, when I called and asked him about it, was that the writing was just too good.

Carol Denney

AKA Grace Underpressure,

Pepper Spray Times

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BANK SCHEMES

Editors, Daily Planet:

Regarding your Feb. 4-7 editorial (“How Wells Fargo Took Betty Bunton’s SSI Money Before She Died”): The PBS Frontline program about credit cards that aired this week (and can be accessed online) dealt very explicitly with the current scams and excesses being perpetrated by the banking industry and went on to explain how this was possible. There were two significant court decisions paving the way for this. One allowed rates established in one state to be applied to transactions within another state even though that state’s law forbids such application. The other permitted fee imposition with no caps. The program went on to establish that the office of the comptroller of the currency within the U.S. Treasury Department has total regulatory power over federal banks, but is disinclined to reign them in even when malfeasance is called to its attention. The program includes a conversation with New York’s Elliot Spitzer (my hero) affirming his own frustration with these abuses.

I am not saying that this program goes directly to Ms. Bunton’s issue, but it provides the context for it.

In passing, I want to aver that I am a devoted reader of the Daily Planet, and of your editorials.

Marilyn Talcott

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MORAL BANKRUPTCY

Editors, Daily Planet:

Becky O’Malley is outraged by Wells Fargo’s alleged misuse of the late Betty Bunton’s bank account, but Ms. O’Malley is not particularly upset about a government which gives SSI checks to homeless people and does nothing to ensure that that the recipients do not spend the money on alcohol and illegal drugs. Ms. O’Malley fails to address a couple of obvious questions: Why doesn’t the federal government require drug testing of SSI recipients before sending them checks? If drug treatment had been readily available, would Betty Bunton have voluntarily enrolled in and completed a treatment program? Anybody who bothers to make even a cursory examination of the scientific literature on substance abuse treatment will learn that client non-compliance is the number one obstacle to implementing successful treatment programs. Liberals and progressives must accept the reality that that much of the money spent on the homeless will be wasted if federal and local programs do not apply a strong does of coercion. You can’t blame Wells Fargo for the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of current government homeless programs.

Eric Tremont

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CALIFORNIA MONTHLY

Editors, Daily Planet:

As I am quoted in Gray Brechin’s generally accurate and useful exposé of recent events at California Monthly, since 1923 the official alumni magazine of the University of California at Berkeley, I would like to correct a couple of understandable misapprehensions.

The Editorial Advisory Committee to the magazine (now dissolved), which I chaired for the past three years, was never a standing committee of the California Alumni Association, and had no official status either in its by-laws or the minds of its officials. In fact, just last summer the CAA ended the official status of all of its alumni-volunteer committees, both statutory and ad hoc—some of them after many decades of service—in order to focus decision-making power in a small, more efficient number of salaried staff, supported by a few elected officials.

Our committee, made up primarily of respected professional journalists with major magazine experience, and spanning the political spectrum, was formed at the request of former editor Russell Schoch, and our critiques of each issue and of the magazine’s policy in general were directed specifically to him. Our goals were to insure that what we regarded as the highest journalistic standards were maintained by the Monthly—we criticized its contents almost as often as we praised them—and to serve, insofar as possible, as a guardian of the magazine’s editorial independence and integrity against what we occasionally regarded as misguided and threatening attacks of readers from both inside and outside the Alumni Association and the university. We were also able to take a stand, on occasion, against prior censorship of the magazine’s contents by CAA or university officials.

But because of our ad hoc, editor-advising status, there was no reason for CAA Executive Director Randy Parent to consult with or inform us about his decision to fire Mr. Schoch. As Mr. Shoch’s direct supervisors, Randy Parent and his deputy Mark Appel were acting within their rights in dismissing him, for whatever reasons they choose to offer. As it turns out, all seven members of the Editorial Advisory Committee—UC professors W. K. Muir and Cynthia Gorney (and myself), and professional editors and reporters Tracy Johnston, Mark Gladstone, Charles Petit and Tim Reiterman—disagreed with the decision to fire and the manner of firing Mr. Schoch, whose work as an editor and spokesman for Cal over almost thirty years we greatly respect. We have received many letters of support for Mr. Schoch and the Monthly from UC faculty and alumni. Some of us (like Mr. Brechin) have severe misgivings about the new, profit-making, general-interest magazine (“from Cal but not about Cal”) intended to replace the California Monthly, proposed and to be edited by Mr. Schoch’s former assistant.

But members of former editor Russell Schoch’s former Advisory Committee cannot formally criticize the decision of Randy Parent and Mark Appel to fire our founder, since we had no official standing in their eyes.

David Littlejohn

Professor Emeritus of Journalism

Kensington

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KARL LINN

Editors, Daily Planet:

Karl Linn’s life was focused on creating beauty as well as community, by envisioning peaceful spaces. I feel fortunate to have known him for a short time. He was the first community member to introduce himself to me as a newly appointed arts commissioner, extending an invitation to participate in the beautiful Ohlone Greenway Dedication ceremony. The Ohlone Greenway is an extension of his original work, the Peralta Community Art Garden, which houses sculptures and gardens that are created by loving hands and thoughtful people. I will never forget the air of inclusiveness that permeated the event and how wonderful that felt.

In the Peralta Garden after the event, Karl’s passionate dedication to his work was as evident as the twinkle in his eye, as we shared the Native American inspired soup. The multi-colored peace pole with its various colored flags flew overhead, reflecting the diversity of the group gathered below and the convictions that he lived by, melding diversity and beauty by creating peaceful spaces.

Karl enjoyed promoting cultural awareness and enhancing community engagement on many levels. His work is a testament to the inclusion possibilities of Public Art Projects when they include historic, artistic, educational, and humanitarian aspects. He enjoyed specifically recognizing and involving all people who were related in any way to the projects he was working on. Their lives were then enriched by the beauty, art, and appreciation of living things within the community. He made a particularly dedicated effort to include the California Native American community in his last project on the Ohlone Greenway. As a Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibway tribal member, I am especially appreciative of his inclusive invitation.

I, as well as many other community members, will treasure the memory of Karl’s talent and the humanitarian commitment he expressed while creating thoughtful beauty. His work will live on, continuing to inspire me, as well as others, for generations. Working in the garden will serve to connect my heart with my mind, and then with the earth, and I will think of his generosity.

Lori Taguma

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