Features

TERRORISTS, ANARCHISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

You know, I actually predicted you would choose the “terrorist” word for a headline if you ran my admittedly pointed opinion piece. So I wasn’t surprised. The actual title of the piece I submitted was “Landmarks Meeting of June 27th”—just a bit less vivid. 

Your choice of that word was both inaccurate and needlessly inflammatory. I chose the word “anarchist” carefully, because of my belief that the LPC had taken profoundly anti-democratic positions, and never considered that “terrorist” was an accurate description. Suicide tactics are indeed employed by some terrorists—but also by others, including Buddhist monks. I did not describe an ideology, only a choice of tactics, as you well know. 

I know controversy sells papers—even free ones—but deliberate distortion is not your duty as an editor. 

I therefore hereby request that you publish a clear clarification that the choice and use of the word “terrorist” was yours as an editor, not mine as a writer. Publication of this letter unedited would be an acceptable alternative. 

Alan Tobey 

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LANDMARKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Alan Tobey’s July 1 commentary: Was the LPC’s decision anarchy or a courageous protest against rather transparent power plays in support of a pro-development agenda over the past four years? Whereby it is now learned that a few minor changes to the ordinance would have made it compatible with the Permit Streamlining Act (PSA)? Instead of tweaking the ordinance, the PSA became the excuse and created the opportunity to gut the ordinance.  

The current composition of the LPC is different from that which approved the revisions a year ago. Also different at the meeting was the absence of the city’s staff attorney Zack Cowen. Staff was quiet, and the commissioners convened, deliberated, and heard each others’ well-reasoned opinions.  

The LPC’s decision also comes in response to the Planning Commission’s bold attempt to demote the LPC, remove some of its powers, placing those powers in the hands of a commission with no expertise in architectural or historical landmarks, i.e. the Zoning Adjustments Board.  

The LPC’s action is welcome especially in light of the city’s bold notice to the public that the ordinance revisions are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Historic resources are a protected resource under CEQA, and proposed changes to the ordinance will reduce those protections. The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association’s (BAHA) attorney argues for environmental review.  

The city’s management and many of the elected council members have a pro-development agenda that is becoming increasingly obvious. Development is one thing, but at the expense of neighborhoods is another. Preservation is a neighborhood issue and not just an aesthetic issue. When a building is demolished, it is usually to put up something larger and more population dense. 

Finally, I wonder if Mr. Tobey’s condemnation of the LPC is a bad case of sour grapes since his recommendation (submitted for that meeting) was not endorsed, and barely considered, by the commission.  

All these examples add up to illustrate the importance of leaving politics out of the ordinance revision process. Toward that end, the city should adopt the LPC’s recommendation and hire an outside expert.  

Janice Thomas  

Director, BAHA 

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SLAVERY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor wants schools to present more on the impact of African slavery in this country. Good idea. Malcolm X lectured on the topic, and Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale were encouraged during their formative months for their Black Panther Party by the responses to the presentations they gave in Oakland on slavery, and other aspects of black history. But the history lessons in the 1960s were tied with strong analysis of the daily impact of racism upon the black public of that tumultuous decade. The problem was defined as slavery AND the pigs. 

In 2005, an analysis of slavery needs to be tied to the policies since the 1960s that have held back and even regressed African America. Today’s school children need to know that a whole lot more than slavery is the cause for today’s disproportionately high representation of black people among those pushing shopping carts and holding out the tin cup.  

Ted Vincent 

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SCHOOL NAME SIDESHOW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many thanks to J.Douglas Allen-Taylor for further flapping on our favorite school name sideshow. I’m shocked, simply shocked, to read Mr. Taylor’s enthusiastic endorsement of recent “honest and serious discussion about American slavery, its ramifications, and its implications,” alongside his spoilsport conclusion that this discussion would continue only if Berkeley begets an elementary school formerly known as Jefferson. 

I must caution Mr. Taylor against his disastrously deterministic view on the place of historical slavery in such current issues as how to educate black youth, how (or whether) to close the achievement gap and/or lift the education of all students. The invocation of an antiquated, mechanistic view of the Big Bang is simplistic and misplaced: We will not now find our way by approaching slavery as a singularity with a predictable trajectory to our current condition. To do so is to deny the diversity of experience, views and ambitions that Taylor finds on display in the occasional honest, serious, and difficult conversation among ordinary people. To do so is to hand over a pluralistic and exploratory educational endeavor to dogmatic zealots. Yet again. 

J. Tharp 

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TERM LIMITS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have to disagree with Zelda Bronstein (“Commission Reform,” July 5) and support a strictly enforced eight-year term limit for commissioners.  

Gene Poschman is only part of the problem. On ZAB alone, there are two members who have been entrenched for what seem like decades, and they both consistently work against the environment.  

It definitely is undemocratic for these people to have so much influence on decisions about Berkeley development just because they have unlimited free time to devote to city government.  

Let’s open up the commissions to reflect the diversity of opinion in Berkeley and are not dominated by a few entrenched people. 

Charles Siegel 

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TRAFFIC CIRCLES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

“People seem to be confused about traffic circles,” claims Colleen McGrath’s July 5 letter. Really? The only confused parties seem to be a couple of planners in the city’s Transportation Office who keep deploying these unwanted devices, and a handful of neighborhood traffic NIMBYs who encourage them. 

The rest of us have figured out traffic circles just fine: They’re an inconvenience and a hazard to nearly everyone. They delay emergency vehicles, distract and baffle drivers, and force cars out into crosswalks and bike lanes. 

Their proliferation will probably cause the very accidents they are supposed to prevent, and harm the pedestrians (like me) and cyclists in whose name they were installed. 

Marcia T. Lau 

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BERKELEY HONDA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley Honda on Shattuck Avenue has joined America’s race to the bottom. Its striking workers are requesting customers not to patronize the establishment until their labor dispute is settled. The workers fear that this Berkeley institution is being turned into an automotive Wal-Mart. The Berkeley dealership has refused to honor the union contract. Instead, 15 employees were fired, including some who are close to retirement. Younger, far less experienced workers have replaced them. Also their pension plan and health insurance have been downgraded. 

Please don’t patronize Berkeley Honda and urge your friends and neighbors not to do so as well. If the community cooperates, these striking workers can have their jobs restored with dignity. 

Harry Brill 

El Cerrito 

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GRAND JURY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a long-time Daily Planet reader, I was very disappointed to see your out-of-date and unexamined front-page article on the bogus Grand Jury report attacking the Alameda County Medical 2 and other local media commented on it by quoting hospital and union responses, as well as noting that its two-month early issue was unusual. The Planet also failed to notice that that same week last May a proposal was floated to appoint Sheriff Charlie Plummer to the hospital Board of Trustees. A speedy campaign by SEIU, Vote Health and other community activists halted this action, also reported in other local media. 

Context is all: It was Plummer who first recommended the Tennessee consulting firm Cambio to take over management of ACMC some 18 months ago, over the fierce opposition of labor and community activists. Since their hiring, the sheriff has regularly attended hospital Board of Trustees meetings, often accompanied by uniformed subordinates in what many hospital workers took as an attempt at intimidation. After these meetings the sheriff would then send poison-pen letters to the Board of Supervisors and to the Grand Jury trashing the trustees and the unions. On the day of the clinic walkout last summer—which the Planet did cover—Plummer hoisted a Cambio budget document in a public meeting and claimed that it revealed that 25 percent of the hospital workforce wasn’t working on any given day, supposedly off on workers comp or long-term disability. This was false, but Cambio officials failed to correct their sponsor. 

The foreman of the grand jury is a former high-ranking employee of Sheriff Plummer. If you look at Plummer’s poisonous notes to the Supes and the grand jury, you will note almost identical themes found in the grand jury report. You can get the letters, as we did, from the county.  

One has to ask, from whom did the grand jury get its bad information? Cambio officials called the notion that 25 percent of their staff are out on workers comp “an urban myth” when asked to explain the figure by County Supervisor Gail Steele at a public meeting on May 18. Cambio verified that the figure includes normal vacation, holidays, sick leave, and other paid absences, with only 44 employees actually out on workers comp. Why would a grand jury investigation not check directly with the agency personnel department it was examining? 

The grand jury report, led by Plummer’s friend, praises Cambio, his protégés from Tennessee, for its horrendous management (surprise!) and claims that ACMC is facing a fiscal crisis, although they just passed a balanced budget without any need for layoffs, as Plummer demands. They foolishly blame the unions for nurse staffing ratios, apparently unaware that those are set by the state (remember our governor being chased around the state by nurses when he tried to change the ratios?). 

There are many other “mistakes” in this tainted report, but I don’t have room in your column. Readers should check out the Oakland Tribune for continued updates. 

Kay Eisenhower 

Chair, Vote Health 

Oakland 

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DOWNTOWN PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I find it difficult to sympathize with the Downtown Berkeley Association when they complain about insufficient downtown parking. 

We already have enough parking downtown. 

A few years ago, the city and UC jointly funded the Traffic Demand Management (TDM) study. It concluded that there would be plenty of parking spaces if people knew where spaces are available and if so many of the spaces were not filled by business owners and employees who park there all day. 

Downtown parking should be reserved for short-term use: shoppers and visitors. 

The TDM study said that with improved signage, and a “modest” shift of all-day parkers to using public transit, there is ample downtown parking right now. 

Perhaps the DBA would like to act as a distribution center for bus passes, for the use of business owners and their employees. 

Steve Geller 

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MORE ON PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Quoting a study conducted by UC Berkeley Staff and students in fall of 2002, “parking shortages are caused in large part by overtime parking, facilitated by broken parking meters and by meter feeding by employees; the effective supply of on-street parking could be increased by better enforcement. Enforcement, in turn, would divert some street parkers to garages and others to less expensive walk, bike and transit modes.” (Deakin, Elizabeth, et. al., Dec. 2002) 

Studies conducted by and for the City of Berkeley show hundreds of parking spaces empty and available in the downtown parking garages, varying during times of day and days of the week, between 1997, 2000 and March 2005, numbering between 100 and 300 empty spaces in the Center Street structure alone. Several other lots add many more available spaces. 

The lack of downtown parking is a myth. Customers of downtown merchants complain they can’t find a parking space. They would like to park close to or in front of the business they are frequenting. But many of the spaces close to the businesses are either: 1) taken by employees or owners of the businesses themselves (observed by study); or 2) taken by meter-feeding patrons who violate the time-limit (about 30 percent of vehicles in the study!). Many metered spaces have had broken meters, up to an average of 32 percent.  

The City of Berkeley’s Transportation Office is in the process of piloting new parking (meter) stations, which seem promising in the solution of meter-feeding and overstaying of time limits. Enforcement will be a more realistic activity with properly functioning parking meters. Once street parking is under better control, with better meters and enforcement, on-street parking violators will be nudged to better utilize the parking garages and/or transit, bicycling and walking modes. It has been estimated that this could open up 50 percent of on-street parking spaces currently occupied on an average day. 

Better parking meters are one of the solutions on the way. The Transportation Office is proposing real-time signage to help drivers find parking and better utilize existing parking spaces; and staff has been working with major employers to support employee use of transportation alternatives.  

Parking spaces are extremely expensive to build: Estimates get higher with each new lot that is built. Surface spaces can cost about $25,000 each, while parking garage spaces can cost upwards of $50,000 per space, or more. 

If one were to think about this situation logically it makes sense both economically and environmentally to allow solution measures time to have an observable outcome, before spending millions of the public’s money to encourage more vehicles to drive and park downtown. 

Marcy Greenhut 

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GATED WILLARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am very dismayed to see that BUSD is now adopting the “gated community” look for Willard Middle School. As this interminable construction continues —what was supposed to last two months and continues unfinished now for 14 months—BUSD is now installing a custom wrought-iron fence and gate, buttressed with over a dozen brick pillars. At the same time as this out of control spending goes on (they should be forced to publish the bill for all their starts and stops), BUSD continues to rattle its tin cup, crying poor. Teachers and students are being moved out of classrooms as administrators are forced to use classrooms as offices since, apparently, there’s no money for portables. Our kids in the cooking program are using 40-year-old stoves, many of which don’t have working ovens and are missing knobs. Two years ago, a major local store generously donated five brand new appliances to the Willard Cooking Program, and to date, not one has been installed. Superintendent Lawrence waxed eloquently at the Berkeley Public Education Foundation Luncheon about the importance of food and nutrition for students, yet there’s no staff or money to install free quality appliances. But there seems to be no end of funds available for their “gated look.”  

You build healthy schools from the foundation up, not from the curb in. There’s something very wrong with BUSD’s priorities and spending. I can’t wait to see what BUSD is charging on my next property tax bill. 

Dan Peven 

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FANCY FENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Heh, I hear that the school district wants to turn Willard Middle School into a gated community—brick pillars, custom wrought-iron fence. The school’s not doing great on test scores, ranks only a 5 (mediocre) on state wide school rankings, but heh, let’s build a fancy expensive fence and gate instead. Now that’s education! 

Marc Fulton 

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BART SECURITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are all grateful there is no BART strike just now. 

But BART announced above-ground restrooms will be closed, because of raised security after bombings in London. The underground restrooms have been closed for years. There is no indication any of the London bombs were placed in restrooms.  

I spoke with a BART spokesperson and asked how many bombs have been placed in BART restrooms. He said that in his employment at BART since 1971, there have been none, to his knowledge. 

I work with disabled people, who often need access to public restrooms. They also use public transportation more often.  

As an aside, I asked about the coin-operated lockers that were in BART stations until the first Gulf War, when we were told they would be removed because of potential terrorist threat. And we were told, they would be replaced after the war. I am still looking for them. The BART spokesperson said he does not recall ever seeing lockers in BART stations.  

Kevin McFarren 

Oakland 

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ANTI-DEMOCRATIC 

Mal Burnstein is at it again, defending the indefensible (Letters, June 24). You might remember Mr. Burnstein as Tom Bates’ lawyer in the infamous Daily Cal trashing case. Now, according to Burnstein, Zelda Bronstein is being naïve and ill-informed when she dares criticize the secrecy with which the City Council deliberated and then approved the settlement with UC. That’s the way the city always deals with lawsuit settlement talks, says Burnstein. “If that is anti-democratic,” he writes, “it is surprising that it took Zelda so long to find out about the practice (reported in all local papers for as long as I have lived here—approximately 50 years.)” 

If Burnstein is right, then his good friend and sometime client Tom Bates was as naïve and ill-informed as Bronstein when he promised BLUE (Berkeleyans for a Livable University Environment) that members of the public would have an opportunity to comment on the terms of the settlement before the council made a final decision. 

If Burnstein is right, why did City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque even bother to sign a confidentiality agreement with UC (also in secret) pledging that the details of the settlement would not be made public until after the deal had been signed and sealed? 

Whether Burnstein is wrong or right, what the mayor, the City Council and the city attorney conspired to do was indisputably anti-democratic. 

Richard Spaid 

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MARRIAGE EQUALITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Molly McKay and Equality California, her gay-marriage organization, aren’t interested in real equality; they just want to gang up with the heterosexual marrieds in sticking it to the unmarried minority.  

These gay-marriage advocates are like some light-skinned Blacks in the Jim Crow South who weren’t opposed to discrimination, per se, they just wanted to be classified as white so they didn’t have to suffer it themselves. I guess Equality California likes its equality Animal Farm style, where everybody is equal, but married people are more equal than others. 

Why should married people of any gender combination be awarded any privileges, rights, benefits or other advantages that favor them over unmarried people? Ms. McKay’s desire for gay marriage is scarcely more principled than those who want to reserve marriage exclusively for straights. Both of these selfish groups want to set themselves on a pedestal above the unmarried and then claim special treatment because of their self-exalted status. Ms. McKay should be calling for the inequities of marriage to be eliminated, not merely extended to favor her special-interest group. 

It’s really something to watch gay and straight couples squabble over benefits that they are both perfectly happy to deny to singles. You’d think that with marriage being such a purportedly fabulous thing that they’d be thrilled just to be married. But apparently that’s not enough for these greedy people. 

The heterosexual married majority and the gay wanna-be-marrieds also see fit to vote themselves special privileges and public moneys for being so special. And all of this is at the expense of the unmarried, who are denied economically valuable privileges and who pay taxes that subsidize substantial marriage perks while receiving none themselves. 

If Ms. McKay and Equality California were truly equality-minded they would call for the elimination of all the invidious distinctions that governments and corporations make between people based on the happenstance of their sex lives.  

I won’t hold my breath. 

S. Smiths