Opinion

Several of our valued correspondents, some in this very issue, have written in to complain that the Daily Planet is taking ads from the Church of Scientology. One asks why we’re supporting that organization. Well, first of all, we’re not supporting them, they’re supporting us, in relatively minuscule proportions compared to our costs, it’s true, but still, they’re paying. Another refers to what he considers the harm Scientology might have done, and makes a comparison to cigarette ads, which he assumes we would turn down. We’ve never actually been offered cigarette ads, but yes, we’d probably turn them down. -more-

A staple of daily newspaper journalism is an “expose” of the salaries paid to public servants of all kinds. The Contra Costa Times has been dining out for more than a year on salary information it obtained about Oakland employees who make more than $100,000 per year, gleaned from a successful California Public Records Act lawsuit against the city. Oakland’s unions, particularly the police union, fought tooth and nail to keep said information from coming out into the open. Lately, the San Francisco Chronicle has been engaged in a similar struggle to reveal information about compensation packages for top University of California officials, and the results have caught the attention of the state Legislature—both parties—in a big way. Putting such details in the public arena is laudable, and readers are certainly shocked to see it, but in some ways these stories miss their mark. -more-

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING -more-

EDITOR’S NOTE: We have recently received more than letters than we can possible print. Therefore the following letters appear only on our website. -more-

I believe that the real disease, the root causes for the imbalance around the Ashby BART station are two-fold—both due to the design of BART done 50 years ago. The first is the six-lane section of Adeline, like a freeway in the heart of a residential area with the disastrous angled intersection of Adeline and Ashby, which has plagued us for a long time, long before BART, and is all the more intractable because Ashby is a state highway, necessarily involving the State of California. Adeline and this inters ection contribute, more than anything else, to the unfriendly feeling of the area, particularly to pedestrians. The second is the damage incurred when healthy neighborhoods were destroyed for BART parking. There has been no attempt to repair any of that damage. -more-

Now that Assemblymember Hancock’s “Fair Elections and Clean Money” legislation (AB 583) has passed the Assembly and is on its way to the Senate, it’s time to get beyond the supporters’ slogans and hype and discuss the actual contents of this bill. -more-

PORT DEAL -more-

In her Feb. 24 letter to the editor, Carolyn Sell mentions both the David Brower Center and plans to develop Ashby BART, an interesting combination which, for me, is an invitation to comment on how the city plans for the use of publicly controlled space. -more-

Maintaining a setback of 30 feet makes good sense for Berkeley creeks and anything less is short-sighted for long-term restoration, ecological health, and city maintenance requirements. -more-