Features

DRUG DEALERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am pleased to see the ongoing discussion regarding the attempt to oust drug dealers from one Berkeley neighborhood. Sara DeWitt’s letter was disturbing. She said, “After seeing that we were serious about bringing a civil suit, our absentee landlord has reformed and no longer takes in SSI tenants.” Excuse me? Perhaps I am missing something but it seems Dewitt is encouraging illegal discrimination. It is just this kind of bigotry that inspired the law specifically barring a landlord from discriminating based on source of income. 

The situation with the Moore house does not involve tenants. One can’t help but wonder why the police are unable to control the situation. One letter writer mentioned dangerous dogs wandering the neighborhood. Has anyone called Berkeley Animal Services about these dogs? Are our laws insufficient, or is it the enforcement of the laws that is insufficient? I remain confused. Why is it so difficult to curtail obvious illegal activities? 

Another important point that has arisen is this—Where does it stop? If people are successful in their attempts to remove “problem” citizens from a neighborhood, will this sort of tactic increase? The letter from DeWitt suggests it will. She speaks of her landlord “no longer taking in SSI tenants.” SSI is largely for disabled and elderly citizens. SSI and drug dealing are not synonyms. Segregation of the elderly and disabled from those more healthy does not seem a practical solution. 

Let the discussion continue. 

Georgette Wrigley 

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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We’ve had enough! It’s time our neighborhood stood up for our quality of life. It’s not fair that one house with their two large SUVs can continue to erode our health and peace every single day. We are captive in our houses to their exhaust. Their engines wake us up with their noise at all hours of the morning. Their pollution ends up in our yards and in our gardens, and their vehicles are eyesores that take up public space. Enough is enough. Our health and our happiness are threatened. Our children are greatly endangered whenever they play in the neighborhood. It’s just not fair! The activities of this family threaten the very peace and stability of the country and the planet. This behavior is a gateway to war and global warming. 

We know the family has been in the house a long time and no one believes the grandmother is a gasoline addict (she walks) but she seems to have no control over her children who are obvious heavy users. We demand that this use of SUVs in our neighborhood stop or we will sue! We cannot tolerate this kind of behavior in Berkeley. No longer shall these thoughtless activities of individuals be allowed to disrupt life for the rest of us. 

Join SUVs Out of Our Neighborhood. 

Tierra Dulce 

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NEEDLESS ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

At a time when many California towns cannot afford to provide basic public services, it was very disturbing to hear Gov. Schwarzenegger joke to reporters yesterday about his needless special election. 

I’ve written him, as perhaps others will do, to say that if he takes full responsibility for it, as he said on Nov. 10, he will go back to his wealthy donors and raise the $50 million or more that it cost and reimburse California counties and taxpayers. 

Charlene Mayne Woodcock 

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TIME TO KICK BUTT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many throughout the labor community in the state are now enjoying the afterglow of beating back Gov. Schwarzenegger’s attempts to crush us in the last election. The media, after advertising our declining potency for the last decade, is now lionizing the labor movement as a mighty beast reborn. And it feels good. 

But unless we move forward, the pleasure we are feeling today will be like finding your car keys after you’ve lost them—you feel great, but in reality you’re no better off than when you started. 

So let’s make it a real victory. Let’s demand for the passage next year of the Rob Reiner/Wilma Chan efforts for guaranteed health care and pre-school for all Californians under the age of 5. Let’s demand the passage of Sheila Kuhl’s Single Payer Bill, so working people (and employers) can be liberated from the death grip of ever-increasing health insurance premiums. And let’s back up these demands with real actions, in our workplaces and communities. 

Let’s equalize our finances. Working people pay a much greater percentage of their income in taxes to Sacramento than do rich people. The legislature needs to restore the tax rates for upper-income Californians that were reduced in the mid-90s by Pete Wilson. And we have to amend Proposition 13 (there, I said it) so that commercial property gets taxed on its true value. Both would generate billions, perhaps enough to eliminate the deficit. 

Will the Democrats push hard enough for any of these things? I doubt it. 

Just as Republicans always go too far, Democrats never go far enough. Democratic elected officials often suck at the same corporate teat for campaign funds as the Republicans. They’ve become reluctant to antagonize rich people too much, in spite of their populist rhetoric. 

Our job in labor is to keep pushing the members of both parties. We can bask for a while over Tuesday’s victory. But working families in California are still being clobbered on a daily basis. Let’s take advantage of the right wing’s election day fumble. It’s time for us to pick up the ball and run for the goal line. Let’s make November 8th a true victory. 

Larry Hendel  

East Bay Director of SEIU Local 790 

Vice President of the Alameda County Central Labor Council 

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PROPOSED FIELD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Normally I would wholeheartedly support the creation of a new sports field such as the proposed baseball field on Derby Street. I certainly appreciate the Berkeley City Council pushing towards such a positive objective, despite pressure from reluctant home owners. However, I oppose this particular project largely because of the reasonable alternatives that exist to spending $3 million of our taxpayer money to unnecessarily close Derby Street, largely for the benefit of the Berkeley High School baseball team. 

One of the immediate negative impacts would be felt by the Tuesday market. The market is more than the sum of its fresh peaches and organic breads. Access to local food is great, but the market also plays a valuable role in building and maintaining that elusive thing we like to call community. It has a social dimension that is not easily quantifiable. 

It’s rather ironic that while people such as Prince Charles are flocking to Berkeley to learn about our approach to community markets and agricultural/nutritional education, we are busy trying to push it to the fringes. Rather than essentially evicting them, we should be moving towards increasing support for the market and the number of days that it occurs. 

One of my other concerns is the project’s unbalanced cost-to-benefit in terms of community sports. As a young, working adult who is not part of the university campus, I can think of several ways that such a large sum of money could be better used to benefit the city’s recreation options. Most importantly, there is a critical shortage of open spaces for pickup games—as not everyone has the desire or ability to join a highly organized team, whether youth or adults. 

Having lived on Hearst Street, I have observed that the Ohlone Greenway lots extending from Milvia to Sacramento are vastly under-utilized. Despite the demand for well-maintained, informal sports spaces that don’t require a one-year advance reservation with Berkeley Recreation and Parks, the turf on these lots have been allowed to sink into disrepair. 

I therefore urge the council to put their admirable interest in youth sports into the above suggestion, while ensuring the BHS team has a spot at the new Gilman Fields and pushing for a speedy completion of the multi-use East Campus fields. 

TJ Wagner 

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YELLOWSTONE BEARS 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Having helped raise a pair of bear cubs here in California and having read extensively about the habits of bears east and north of here, I’m not sure bringing Yellowstone bears to California is such a good idea. Our flora are unique and bears here are adapted to it. Strangely enough, the flora have adapted to the bears, too. All the native berries tolerate the pruning habits of bears while they eat. A Prunus in the Sierra range has developed toxic sap more irritating than Fig latex or ushuriol (poison oak) to keep bears from destroying them as they harvest the fruit. Bears from the Rocky Mountains are not going to have grown up learning about this tree. This is just one example of the problems bears not raised here will encounter. As wonderfully playful, smart and exuberant as our bears are, their needs for large territories to roam and forage in has always limited their numbers and makes preserves for them a necessity. It would be a great shame to bring bears here only to lose them to the great differences of environment that they would be stressed by. If we concentrate on preserving the populations we have now and allow them to develop naturally, we should not have a problem seeing their numbers grow slowly and sustainably to a larger, but manageable, level that will allow us to coexist with them well into the next century.  

Linus Hollis 

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BRUNDIBAR UP IN SMOKE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Tobacco giant Altria/Philip Morris is the lead sponsor of the “family opera for the holidays,” Comedy on the Bridge/ Brundibar, now playing at our Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Loved ones of Philip Morris’s customers might find that bitterly ironic. Holidays spent in hospital rooms full of grief, pain, and human drama—thanks to Philip Morris’s addictive product and relentless marketing—is a family opera that we can do without. Soliciting tobacco industry funding for the arts is no different than wearing a blood diamond. I hope the Berkeley Rep reconsiders its new partnership with Altria/Philip Morris, the company largely responsible for the suffering and death of millions of smokers and nonsmokers, and the pain endured by their families. Tobacco use is far and away the number one cause of preventable death in our country and is unique in that regard. It’s lonely at the top, and Berkeley Rep certainly should not let Big Tobacco buy legitimacy and credibility through sponsorship. There are many “controversial” industries that support the arts, but there is nothing controversial about tobacco companies. They have no place in community theater. 

Bronson Frick 

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UNIVERSITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We read with interest about the forum to discuss the university as a neighbor to be held Monday night, Nov. 14. But the schedule conflicts with our separate volunteer commitments in Berkeley that night. 

We both have lived here, raised our families here, and worked for the university for a long time, and find little that is more intriguing than the state of University and community relations, as characterized by some.  

For the record, we’re glad to have interesting jobs with an institution dedicated to public education, research and service, the option to hear David Lynch and see the Winter’s Tale on campus on a weekend, and to live with the university’s struggles to address diversity and equity. We also welcome our short commutes. As you and your writers think of “the people who live and work in Berkeley,” we hope you’ll consider our viewpoints, as well. 

Jennifer Lawrence 

Emily Marthinsen 

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VICIOUS ATTACK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In answer to Gray Brechin’s vicious attack on my letter about Israel, I must, of course, go ad hominem. First off, what kind of a name is Gray? Immediately and obviously, I’m suspicious of anyone called Gray. Second, he uses the word “meretricious” to describe the victimhood of Jews. Well, Gray, the dictionary says “meretricious” means “befitting a prostitute.” Knowing this, how could you use it about a serious subject? Have you no shame? Third, Gray sounds to me like a guy who uses fancy words like “meretricious” and “reprise” to intimidate persons with whom he disagrees. A nasty tactic. Well, excuuuuse me, Gray, I may not be as educated as you, or have access to a thesaurus, but that doesn’t mean that you’re right and I’m wrong. 

Robert Blau  

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MOVING TO TEL AVIV 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Iran’s new president threatens Israel with annihilation, and the whole world understands that by this they mean nuclear annihilation. As President Ahmadinejad correctly notes, the annihilation of Israel has been Iran’s official policy for years. That’s why Iran is the major financial backer of Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad. And that’s why one of Iran’s ruling Mullahs recently mused aloud that just one or two well-placed nukes would do the trick for tiny Israel, which is, after, all only about the size of New Jersey.  

Leave it to the Daily Planet’s Conn Hallinan to insist that this is “just wind.” Sometimes people actually do mean what they say. Mein Kampf, as it turned out, was not “just wind,” but gave the world years of forewarning. I suggest that the Daily Planet and its staff move to Tel Aviv, Iran’s intended ground zero, and report so smugly from there in coming years, as Iran goes nuclear, that it’s all just wind. I’ll bet that soon enough they will be praying that that wind does not blow fallout upon their heads. 

John Gertz 

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