Features

CIVIC CENTER FOUNTAIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The current conflict between restoration of the fountain in Civic Center Park and the community of swimmers in Berkeley is a manufactured conflict. The restoration of the long neglected fountain was intended to be done with bond money approved by voters in Berkeley in 1997. Measure S was written to obtain money for expansion of the Central Library, earthquake retrofit of the Civic Center Building at 2180 Milvia, and improvements for the downtown. A portion of the money for the downtown was to be used for revitalization of Civic Center Park. After their bond issue passed a group of interested citizens from all over Berkeley joined with a subcommittee of the Parks and Recreation Commission to discuss how the bond money would best be spent. There were workshops, committee meetings, consultants, much time spent planning for the improvements to the park. The most time consuming and expensive item was always the fountain, but it was also the job which had to be done first. We set priorities on which jobs were to be funded immediately and which jobs should wait for later funding, either from grants or the general fund. The fountain was not to be funded from the general fund but from the bond money. 

Of course the City of Berkeley should not be closing its swimming pools. People need them for their health. Employees of the City of Berkeley also should not change the money source for major infrastructure jobs when a long delayed project finally is ready to be completed. The fountain and the children’s play area are the most important jobs to be done in Civic Center Park and should be done immediately with the bond money. Many people enjoy festivals in the park. It serves as open space for the people who live in or near downtown. We as a city should respect our infrastructure by keeping all of it in good condition. Nearby residents would be more than happy to help with the construction and maintenance of the fountain and the play area. 

Carrie Sprague 

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WEST BERKELEY BOWL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Why is it that we who live in the neighborhood of the proposed West Berkeley Bowl are expected to allow people such as John Curl, Mary Lou Van De Venter and Zelda Bronstein to decide what is best for us? All of these people are interested in serving commercial interests (imaginary ones at that). 

The land on which the proposed Bowl would sit had sat vacant for decades, as an eyesore. As for traffic problems, so what if a number of people from other areas want to bring money into this area? As for parking and congestion, why doesn’t the city buy up the railroad property adjoining the site in question? I hear they are planning to construct a four-block bicycle route to nowhere on that land. I am an avid biker, and I cannot think of any reason for such a stupid idea. 

There are many senior citizens who live in this neighborhood, who are extremely inconvenienced by the lack of a market in this area—that is, one where one can obtain healthy nourishing food at an affordable price. We all need for this market to happen. 

I hope that this won’t just turn into one more example of the City of Berkeley shooting themselves in the foot. 

Christina Ramer 

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FLOWER CIRCLES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m wondering why, in this time of severe budget cuts, the City of Berkeley is constructing all of these flower circles at neighborhood intersections in West Berkeley? I’ve counted around eight at intersections from Shattuck down to San Pablo, and from Ashby over to Delaware. 

I understand the flower circles help to control traffic flow. I also see more motorists, than not, completely ignore the directions for going around the flower circles and make the sharp left turn. At the same time these flower circles are slowing down traffic, they are also slowing response time to crime scenes and firemen to respond to emergencies, so why does the city feel it is necessary to put up these expensive, decorative impediments to their jobs? 

The City of Berkeley is cutting services to its citizens citing budget constraints, yet they find the money to tear up perfectly fine intersections, build the flower circles. I don’t have the figures on what it takes to build, plant and maintain (year after year) these flower circles, but instead of flower circles I would like the City of Berkeley to fix the pothole on Parker just above Sacramento. That fucker is four inches deep and popped my bike tire last month. 

Brenda Benson 

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OAKLAND DEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I find it telling that planners at the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce (“Closed Meeting Held on West Lake Merritt Plans”, April 19-21) have not yet learned how to tell direction. I suspect they spend too much time in the “metropolitan” and not enough time in Oakland. 

The conference discussed developments planned south of Lake Merritt. 

It concerns me, too, that the chamber may not be fully informed as to the public trust status of the greatest portion of that land, and brought private developers into the discussion who are looking opportunities for speculation. 

Perhaps someone at the chamber should do some land-title research while they pull out a map, before hosting conferences to lure developers to Oakland. 

Steven Lavoie 

Oakland 

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POLICE ACTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your latest editorial reports a police action in which police initially demanded momentary conformance and submission from a citizen in order to resolve a situation created by a 911 call. Once resolved, the police “profusely” apologized when it became clear that the call was a false alarm. 

Some details are that a person went to the wrong door, knocked, and tried to enter. The occupant, frightened and confused, called 911. 

The editorial asks “why are you not surprised to learn that she’s [the would-be entrant] a dark-skinned person?” 

The answer, for me, is that if you randomly select a person who makes such an innocent mistake in Berkeley, the odds, while probably less than 50 percent, are not small that that person will have dark skin. There are many dark-skinned people who live here. Pick a random person and you shouldn’t be surprised if they happen to have dark skin: You’ve made an only very slightly lucky selection. 

In other words, I am not surprised, but not for the reasons the editorial proposes. I am also not alarmed and I think it is quite a stretch to claim that this is racism. 

The editorial asks me to believe that the response would have been different for a white-skinned person. I don’t believe that at all, based on experience. 

The editorial ridicules the idea that a woman with a baby carriage in broad daylight could possibly be a serious threat. The bombed bus from Israel that recently visited Berkeley is refutation enough. 

Please don’t add fuel to a fire, Daily Planet. 

The real issues here are: 

(a) Was the police response rapid and ample enough? 

(b) How can we can educate people that such momentary interruptions of their routine are not much of a problem if they take the police seriously rather than trying to resist helping them or insist on picking pointless fights with them? 

We live in interesting times. 

Tom Lord 

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PEDAL EXPRESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In an attempt to address massive funding shortfalls, the City of Berkeley is drastically cutting some departmental budgets. One contract on the chopping block is with our company, Pedal Express, which has been delivering interoffice mail to outlying city buildings by bicycle for over 10 years. We are still delivering Commission packets for the time being. 

We originally won this city contract as part of the city’s Resource Conservation and Global Warming Abatement Plan, which calls for a 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by 2010. In these 10 years, we have proven to not only decrease pollution and traffic with bicycle delivery, but also provide timely, efficient service at significant savings to the city.  

As a small worker-owned cooperative, we pay ourselves a living wage, while saving the city money through the use of efficient vehicles and a non-hierarchical management structure. The current city plan calls for city employees driving city vehicles to take over these tasks. This increases fuel, insurance, repair and parking costs, as well as adding to downtown congestion and pollution, while increasing the strain on already-overworked employees. 

We will hopefully be on the agenda at the May 10 City Council meeting to address this change. Please support us. 

Kristin Hale 

Keeeth Kohler 

Barbara Murphy 

Cynthia Powell 

Robert Webb 

Pedal Express Cooperative 

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FOOTHILL HOUSING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

He said it, not I.  

David Snippen, Chair of the Civic Arts Commission, at the City Council’s regular meeting on April 12 characterized the service entrance to UC Berkeley’s Foothill Housing dining commons as the “armpit” of Hearst Avenue’s 2700 block. 

Mr. Snippen’s eyesore abuts one of four 15-year-old concrete pylons—two on each side of Hearst—residuals of the long-running Foothill bridge proposal, reintroduced in 2003, the fourth time since 1988.   

The applicant is none other than the UC Regents.  

At issue is whether the Berkeley City Council should grant or deny a “major encroachment permit” for a mid-block pedestrian bridge linking the northern (La Loma) section of the Foothill Student Housing Complex with the southern (Hillside) section. 

The council is currently scheduled to render a decision on this matter at their regular meeting on April 26.  

Unfortunately for the university, a careful reading of BMC 16.18.080 suggests that our city mothers and fathers—should they choose to uphold city law—will be severely challenged to make the “findings” required to grant the permit. 

Hence, the university is offering “mitigation” capital to sweeten the deal.   

“The presence of the bridge will provide a certain level of detriment to the neighborhood,” acknowledge our city manager and public works director.  However, they assert, this detriment would be “sufficiently offset” by public infrastructure improvements in the “Hearst Corridor” contributed by the applicant “in the amount of $200,000.” 

Before you condemn city staff for recommending a swap of undervalued public air space for some vague infrastructure mitigations, why not look at the positive side?   

Creation of a pedestrian bridge over Hearst Avenue could help obscure a street armpit and: 

• Create a highly visible structure which the applicant could enhance with “THIS IS BEAR TERRITORY” banners.  

• Enable La Loma residents with midnight munchies to browse after-hours food-service offerings across the street while clad in pajamas.  

• Reduce orientation time for short-term La Loma residents who attend one or more of UC Berkeley’s many “summer camps” (eg, football, rugby, academic enhancement, and cheerleading).  

• Simplify the job descriptions of Foothill service personnel responsible for maintaining habitability, dispensers, and vending machines on the La Loma side.  

• Guarantee that another $600,000 to $1,500,000 of business for UC contractors (and overhead for UC administrators) could be siphoned out of student fees.  

• Provide an excellent platform for viewing the thousands of trucks laden with toxic soil and radioactive debris that are expected to descend from the LBNL’s Bevatron demolition site (circa 2006-2012).  

• Test, following the next big jolt on the Hayward Fault, whether the University’s design and engineering consultants have done their homework correctly.  

Jim Sharp 

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OAKLAND POLICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am neither a friend nor an enemy of the police. They have a job to do, and when it is well done, everybody benefits. When it is badly done, everybody loses. The recent story about the alleged refusal to help a shooting victim is a case in point. 

The police arrived at a scene of illegal activity (armed robbery at the least) with gunshots fired. There were abandoned cars and people fleeing, which would indicate a need for both action and caution (“Friends Say Oakland Police Denied Aid to Shooting Victim,” April 22-25).  

The friends may have had the best intentions in the world, but the police had no way of knowing that. They could have been friends of the victim, but incompetent (i.e., their cell phone ran out of battery or time), or friends of the shooter(s) looking to silence a victim. They might or might not have known how to give first aid. They might or might not have been attempting to lure police away from the well-lit activity scene onto darkened streets with hostile purpose. The police went with the by-the-book scenario to control the area (i.e., get witness statements, clear the scene of bystanders/unidentifiable participants, and impound anything that looked like evidence.)  

The young man had fled and was several blocks away, in hiding. He was no longer a part of the scene and was apparently in no immediate danger. If he had come forward to ask for help or to give a witness statement, that would require action. But police, as I understand it, are not supposed to do hot pursuit in this sort of situation because the possible complications are much worse than misplacing one witness or one participant.  

I agree the officers could have been more helpful. That is why a chaplain often rides with the police, because the chaplain can assist friends/ traumatized bystanders, etc., in a safe zone set up near but outside of the police action. Since chaplains are volunteers and most do not get paid, there is always a need for more to assist in these kinds of situations.  

I sincerely hope and pray that the young man recovers well. He undoubtedly got the best of trauma care at both Children’s and Highland. I also hope that the police do not get so much hostility behind this crime (which they had no part in) that people forget that the young man was not shot by police; b. was not harmed in any way by the police; and was in good enough condition that his friends moved him themselves rather than calling an ambulance to get him the fastest possible care.  

The Rev. Teddy Knight 

• 

ON THE ENVIRONMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Since another Earth Day has recently passed, now is the perfect time to evaluate the effects our everyday choices have on the environment. When most people think of protecting the Earth, they may consider driving less, recycling, or conserving water. These are all positive, but there is another simple, powerful action that makes a huge difference for the environment: eating less meat. 

About 450,000 factory farms produce most American meat, using an enormous amount of resources and contributing to virtually every environmental problem we face. Factory farms are responsible for about half of our total water use, and animal waste causes water pollution that devastates ecosystems and poisons groundwater. Waste and chemicals from factory farms also cause air pollution and human health problems. Cows and manure pits even produce greenhouse gases, contributing to the climate crisis. 

Changing our diet is critical to the health of the planet. Happily, vegetarian options have never been more delicious or plentiful, and choosing a plant-based meal is an easy way to protect the earth. Readers can learn more about meat production’s environmental effects at www.small-planet.org and can find local veg-friendly restaurants, recipes, and other resources at www.VegSF.com.  

Erin Williams  

President, Small Planet  

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TRAFFIC CAMERAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Yes, people who run red lights should be punished. Yes, there is a safety concern. Yes, a slap in the pocketbook is an appropriate punishment. Yes, police and fire personnel are over-paid with generous salaries and pensions, but they are generally informed and courteous. No, for a fine of $321, citizens should get more than a robotized traffic cop with an anonymous officer reviewing the photos. Ironically, a Berkeley police office (with real, live police officers) is right at the intersection of the Adeline Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way where one of the three cameras is installed. 

Robert Gable 

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ACHIEVEMENT GAP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to Michael Larrick’s April 19 commentary: I fail to see any cohesive evidence he has that the “achievement gap” is a problem of blacks being “perennial victims.” He starts the article with “blacks and their leaders”??? I am an African-American male and the only leaders I have are my father and mother; the thought of having a “leader” speak for their whole community is nonsense. Is President Bush the leader of “whites”? I attended Berkeley schools in late ‘60s and have three young boys growing up here in Berkeley; believe me, the problem is socio-economic. Many children, as high as 60 percent to 70 percent, are attending the Berkeley schools from “other districts” so we are not getting children who are initially “educated in Berkeley.” Come on, how silly is it for Larrick to try and connect “rap music” with low achievement! Rap music is “theatrical” just as heavy metal sends messages of death and the devil. I see Larrick has quite a narrow view of the world...and lemme guess: Got any black friends? I doubt it. 

Carlton Jones 

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STEREOTYPING BLACKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Michael Larrick’s and Peter Schorer’s comments indicate that they have only one very clear stereotype of African Americans: unsuccessful. Perhaps because that is the picture the popular media is most comfortable showing us again and again, they fail to take into account the many African Americans, like myself, who are college educated, home owners, responsible parents, taxpayers, and deeply proud of their heritage. 

We know that we did not get where we are today on our own. We are here and we thrive because of the incredible strength and power of our ancestors who endured, resisted, and survived millions of atrocities committed against them during over 300 years of American chattel slavery. We are here and we thrive because of the strength of character which allowed our grandparents and parents to keep going everyday—in spite of daily racist and dehumanizing treatment at their schools and workplaces. We are here and we thrive and we do not want to forget, or allow others to forget, whose shoulders we stand upon. 

I enjoy civil rights, not because of Thomas Jefferson, but because of my forbears’’ courageous demands to share in the benefits of this wealthy nation which was in large part built by their forced and underpaid labor. In suggesting a name change for Jefferson School we ask the community to learn about the true history of our ancestors, rather than continue to minimize and marginalize it. We seek, not a magic pill to right all wrongs and cure all injustices, but acknowledgment and respect for the lives and experiences of our families. 

Marguerite Talley-Hughes  

• 

PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While I am happy to learn that the Berkeley Public Library has canceled its plan to lay off employees, I am concerned by the way the restructuring process has occurred throughout this year. Although there have been proposals from the Union as well as library staff addressing financial and staffing issues, as well as significant public comment, Library Director Jackie Griffin seems unwilling to take into account any of these sources’ opinions in shaping her own proposals. 

For example, the proposal to move all the teen librarians from the branches to Central has remained on the table, despite the nonsensical nature of the proposal and public outcry at the idea of losing beloved members of branch library communities. Griffin claims that the branch teen programs are ineffective and lack diversity, and wants the librarians to try for more inclusion. As a former member of the Playreaders at the North Berkeley Branch, I object to the idea that the Teen Program is unsuccessful—Playreaders is probably, by almost anyone’s count, one of the most successful library programs at any branch. Bringing it to Central would not increase its diversity, as it already has all ethnicities, income brackets, and sexual orientations represented among the 48 people on its mailing list.  

I am sure that all the teen librarians are open to suggestions and innovations as to how to create programs that will bring more youth of all backgrounds to the libraries. But centralizing the teen program as a way of fostering this goal makes very little sense. Teenagers do not like to go out of their way to find someone; indeed, having trusted adults readily available to teens in their neighborhoods is one of the most important ways to keep them safe. Teen librarians in all the branches value their time at the desk when they can see and greet teens who come in, and invite them to participate in local programs. The proposed changes in the teen program would drastically reduce this face time, and probably would cut some teens out altogether.  

It may be that the teen program needs some restructuring, but it should keep the teen librarians at their branches, and should actively involve them in coming in up with new strategies and programs that will attract a larger portion of the teen community. Jackie Griffin needs to put more trust in her staff and less trust in her ego. 

Joanna Taylor 

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PRIVATE SOCIETY 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Our president is using the political capital he thinks he won last Nov. 2 to inject a large dose of privatization into a healthy Social Security system, a debilitating inoculation for a mild ache decades in advance of its happening.  

Look for his “Campaign for Change” to follow a pattern of “Operation Iraqi Freedom”: having declared what he wants, the president then puts his men and women to work finding reasons for doing it, reasons on which all can agree. For “regime change” read “ownership society” and substitute “crisis” for “WMD.”  

Such arrogant and simplistic strategies are impervious to rational opposition because they are impervious to truth as was painfully demonstrated by the inability of more people than voted for him to stop or even delay his war whistle. The fact that Social Security has made retirement a bit more comfortable for millions and millions, among them, my dad who was one of the first to receive benefits, will not deter the president.  

The Bush network knows how to turn catastrophe into success and make a fantasy look like the real thing. It’s too early to tell whether privatize means abolish, but if privatization follows the prototype in which “liberate” is the same as “occupy” and “Iraqi freedom” equals “freedom to support the U.S.,” then there is reason to worry. Young workers will be enticed with happy visions of hands-on control of their own, hard earned money, reaping huge profits, changing bread into cake, as it were. Older people will be blasted with arousing songs, seductive chants that assuage fear—pay less now or pay more later.  

Numbers may be overlooked but they cannot be erased. Almost 50 million people currently receive monthly Social Security payments contributed by 150 million workers totaling $492 billion annually. Subtract my share and the fund shrinks to $491,999,999,074, a number that is difficult to read much less understand. 

In Middle East policy the Bush team’s success was based on the fear of WMD; this time their fear mongering rests on large numbers. They recently used a calculation “at infinity” to predict a “$10 trillion shortfall,” “pulling a number out of the air” (New York Times editorial, Jan. 3).  

Large numbers are both fascinating and frightening. Expect “bad math [and] faulty logic…” to fig leaf the lies (Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research). 

The trust fund’s future inadequacy is a fraud because is not static, it is not subject to wear like an auto tire that you need to start saving now to replace some years down the line. It changes, and although it is inversely affected by decreases in mortality rates it only needs patching such as was done 20 years ago when “baby boomers” threatened its sustainability. 

George W. was not alive in 1935 when Social Security became law and not one of his supporters will be alive to benefit from or, indeed, answer for the consequences if it’s privatized. People not yet born will.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

SUPREME COURT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The size of the Supreme Court is not fixed by the Constitution. Called for by the Constitution but established and limited by congressional legislation, the original court had only six members: five associate judges and the chief justice. Congressional law raised the possible court complement to 10 in 1863, but in 1866, at odds with an unpopular post-Civil War president, Congress voted for the court to shrink to seven, as vacancies occurred. Consequently, the court shrank to eight, until in 1869, when Andrew Johnson left office, Congress restored the complement to nine, where it remains. 

The history of that turbulent long-past decade of the 1860s, should be remembered in our present circumstance. Before the horse runs away, we should close the barn door, permanently. Faced with possibly impending loss of Rehnquist and several other justices, together with the frightening realization that on Sept. 11, 2001, all nine of the justices could have been killed at once by a hijacked airplane, wouldn’t it be well for Congress to prevent appointment, ever, by one man, of an overwhelming number, or, at worst, the totality of members of the Supreme Court to serve for life in either our near or distant future? 

Is it not advisable for Congress to limit every president during this tenure to seating on the court only two, even when only one judge comprises the court, or to three when a catastrophic event had eliminated the entire court (not an impossibility at any time), in either case the court to grow to its maximum in subsequent administrations. Could such limitation really be worse than if, as at present, following a sudden extinction of the court or undue multiple vacancies one man can at once seat nine judges or an overwhelming majority? 

A reasonable limitation of any president’s replacements on the Supreme Court should be a bipartisan goal. With court members constitutionally seated for life, bar only resignation or impeachment, restricting replacement to two (or three after a wipeout) by any one president (constitutionally restricted to two terms) should guard against to abrupt fortuitous retrenchments of popularly-discarded or even abhorrent views. The delay to more than one administration, of the replacement of close-spaced multiple vacancies should favor a healthy diversity of age, sex, race, ethnicity, social and economic status on the court. 

Judith Segard Hunt 

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BOLTON HEARING: 

A BETTER CHOICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Instead of going to the Berkeley City Council Meeting Tuesday night, or even watching it on cable TV, I watched instead the hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on C-SPAN. My foregone disappointment with the undemocratic and unresponsive modus operandi of the Berkeley City Council was quickly assuaged by the splendid demonstration of democracy conducted by Senators Dodd, Biden, Kerry, and Obama. By their eloquent speeches, which must have stirred the very spirits of the founding fathers, they won over several key Republicans and even melted the glacier-like ice of Senator Lugar, the chairman of the committee, which was no small accomplishment. Of course, such efforts should not have even been necessary in such an obvious matter of democratic procedure, and it only goes to remind that we are still in the kindergarten stage of democracy and not in the institutions of higher learning, if we are under a democracy at all. 

Peter Mutnick