Public Comment
Letters to the Editor
FCMAT
Editors, Daily Planet:
Ernest Avellar is entitled to his paranoia, but your readers are entitled to a correction about the history of the school budget crises. The Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) is not a “semi-secret organization,” as he writes. It’s a rather dull committee of school finance experts that publishes its findings and interim reports on its website, www.fcmat.org. Sheila Jordan, County Superintendent of Schools, did not run the Oakland school district into bankruptcy; the Oakland superintendent did. What Jordan did is to blow the whistle on the rampant mismanagement and climate of corruption that prevailed in the district at the time. Instead of blaming Jordan for calling in the State, Avellar should give thanks. The size of Oakland’s deficit would have cratered the County. Only the State had resources big enough to cover it.
Martin Nicolaus
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FORUM ON YOUTH VIOLENCE
Editors, Daily Planet:
I applaud the efforts of Mayor Tom Bates and School Board President Terry Doran to organize the forum on Youth Violence and Out of Control Parties on April 22 at Longfellow School. The forum gave an opportunity for parents, students, community members, and city and school staff to discuss issues confronting teens today and the resources needed to help. I encourage the mayor, city staff, and the administrators of Berkeley Unified School District to continue such forums so we may understand what our youth need and how we may be of greater service to them. It will take the concerted work of all agencies to begin to find solutions to the problems of violence, drugs, alcohol, and education. Thank you to the organizers and participants for a positive and productive response to recent, tragic events.
Mary Jacobs
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CORRECTION
Editors, Daily Planet:
In my April 18 commentary in the Daily Planet, I alluded to detailed and “arcane” language in the Creeks Task Force proposal. I remembered hearing, in the many task force meetings I attended, some rather arcane discussion, but I must admit that in rereading the final text of the proposal, it may at some points be overly detailed, but it is clear and concise, and nowhere arcane. I must also say that I think the work of the task force was thorough and conscientious and the proposal generally reasonable.
Jerry Landis
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TWO THINGS
Editors, Daily Planet:
I hope that there isn’t too severe a penalty for including two unrelated subjects in one letter. I promise to keep it short, like myself.
1: Generals: “ Rumsfeld is arrogant and incompetent.” Bush: “My kind of guy!”
2. I couldn’t help noticing in the Daily Planet the different pictures of police treatment of folks and their property in Peoples’ Park and the ones illegally lounging on the median strip in the Gourmet Ghetto.
Ruth Bird
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DOWNTOWN BUSINESS
Editors, Daily Planet:
Want more downtown business? No mystery to most consumers: Easier parking and fewer homeless people. The problem is not the lack of opportunity for brick-and-mortar retail stores. Consider the success of Fourth Street in Berkeley, or Bay Street in Emeryville, which bloomed while downtown deteriorated.
Robert Gable
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PUBLIC LIBRARY
Editors, Daily Planet:
I’ve been involved with Friends of the Berkeley Public Library for some years and want to remind Daily Planet readers about this fine organization, one of those little-known Berkeley organizations that quietly goes about doing essential community work.
The Friends sponsor many of the library’s most popular programs—the Summer Reading Program, Adult Literacy, Earphone English, and the Jazz Festival. We also contribute to the acquisition of special collections and support staff development, including scholarships in library education.
The Friends raise funds for the Library through sales at their two used bookstores—a small shop downtown in the Central Library, and a larger store in the Sather Gate Mall between Durant and Channing. Phenomenally, the Friends make upwards of $100,000 each year by selling donated books, records, videos, and cassettes. Volunteers from the Friends serve as the sales force, sorters, pricers, and shelvers of the thousands of books that Berkeleyans generously donate.
Currently, we’re seekers… seekers of new members ($25 a year), seekers of donated books (call 841-5604 for information), seekers of book buyers, and seekers of bookstore volunteers. In fact, if you’ve ever wanted to run a little bookshop, make lots of money for the community, enjoy the company of like-minded bibliophiles, or browse through thousands of books, this is the place for you. (There’s the added benefit of experiencing first-hand, as a merchant, the indescribable Telegraph Avenue scene!)
For those of you who love the Library and want to work directly for its betterment, please consider joining our good company. Contact the Sather Gate Bookstore at 841-5604 (Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.).
Jim Novosel
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ISRAEL/PALESTINE
Editors, Daily Planet:
I would like to suggest that the Palestinians and those who support a free Palestine rethink their approach to opposing Israel. Suicide bombings are counterproductive. They fail to increase support for the Palestinian’s cause and simply lead to more rounds of killing, of Israelis and of Palestinians. As a meaningful alternative I would suggest that the Palestinians embrace a Gandhi Activist Nonviolent Confrontational approach, organizing groups of children and women to sit in front of bulldozers, tanks and army trucks, etc., and see that such protest action appears on TV and Internet sets throughout the world.
If this strategy is embraced, it would not only end the terrorist killing of Israeli civilians but would most likely, I think and pray, energize international opposition to Israel’s occupation of land that falls on the Palestinian side of the pre-1967 borders. Here in the United States, millions might be motivated to march in opposition to the continued occupation of the Palestinian homeland, much as we marched to oppose racism here at home. Nonviolent confrontational action has historically gathered support for those who sincerely employ this strategy. It is time, past time, to try something new, to embrace a meaningful alternative to terrorism on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian.
The bottom line should be to find a way to save the lives of children and women on both sides. Simply telling the Palestinians to accept Israel and the borders being imposed by Israel just won’t cut the cake any more than telling the Israelis to forgo their occupation while their women and children are being killed by terrorists.
Oh yes, I do appreciate that one person’s terrorist may well be another person’s freedom fighter. But this in no way changes the immediate need, namely to end the killing of civilians on both sides, Palestinians and Israelis.
What do you think?
Irving Gershenberg
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‘SMALL TRAGEDY’
Editors, Daily Planet:
In his April 28 review of playwright Craig Lucas’ Small Tragedy, now playing at the Aurora Theatre, Ken Bullock writes, “he (Lucas) tries for the big post-9/11 rabbit punch masquerading as moral commentator.”
In the final scenes, the drama is focused on the conflict of Jen (Carrie Paff) as she tries to decide what to do with her newborn infant. Fifty-five years ago this past weekend (April 30, to be exact) Lucas was abandoned in a car by his birth mother. Viewed as roman a clef, Small Tragedy is neither melodramatic nor moralistic but becomes memoir.
Joe Kempkes
Oakland
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PUBLIC LIBRARY
Editors, Daily Planet:
In regard to the recent no-confidence vote at the Berkeley Public Library, where it has been suggested that we are witness to some sort of union coup attempt or private feud, one way to figure out just what hidden struggles are going on behind the public stories is to look at the probable personal gains or losses to those involved. When I do, I see that the unionized employees seem to have the most to lose in any public discreditization of the library managers and director. Managers in virtually any organization are older and so closer to retirement, and by their ambitious natures are more willing to leave an employer. They have a personal stake in keeping the library going in the short run until they retire or sufficiently impress possible future employers, even if that sacrifices the distant future of those who remain.
The unionized employees are personally rewarded through a seniority system of salary increases, retirement benefits, and protection from layoffs the longer they stay with the library. The library can only afford to keep them to the extent that Berkeley citizens continue to vote the library money. And surely the two-thirds of the unionized employees who signed the petition must know that such a public action weakens the short-term political position of the library. So I conclude that for the employees to have so risked their futures, they must believe that the director and her managers are indeed destroying the library’s future.
Sylvia Maderos-Vasquez
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LAWN PARKING
Editors, Daily Planet:
The “lawn parking” issue represents two of the things wrong with Berkeley. First, in a moment in which everyone agrees that we need to cut down on gasoline use—for political, environmental, and safety reasons—Berkeley is seriously considering pouring more concrete so that the ever-more affluent student body can park its SUVs and Mercedes on the sidewalk (this is not hyperbole, check out Dana Street). Second, the staff who came up with this idea is not accountable to any transparent procedure of accountability. When I asked a City Official about who was held accountable for the recent motorcycle parking idiocy, he smiled tolerantly. Would this count for promotion? He smiled tolerantly. He added that the city manager is not reviewed by the city council even though it is part of their mandate to do so.
Paul Rabinow
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RESPONSE TO GERTZ
Editors, Daily Planet:
Recently John Gertz wrote “perhaps Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission and City Council should call the Palestinians to task for [electing Hamas].” (Daily Planet, April 7.) Now he claims he said no such thing. Perhaps he shares Bush’s touching faith that no one can remember anything, for he goes on to assert in his most recent op-ed that he never packed the Peace and Justice Commission nor threatened Linda Maio.
Let’s review the record. Last summer, when the Peace and Justice controversy surfaced, a Daily Planet reporter asked Gertz about his alleged involvement. “Corrie was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Gertz said. “What I have observed is that a lot of people were sick of the commission being run by the lunatic left and some brave people came forward to put a stop to it.” Gertz added, “The real political objective is that Maio is going down and so is Worthington. They refused to rescind their vote on Corrie. That’s it for them. They’re toast.” (Daily Planet, July, 22, 2005.)
The reporter mentioned that Gertz had not specified how he would ensure Maio’s (or Worthington’s) defeat, so Gertz obligingly wrote to the Daily Planet to lay out his strategy (July 29, 2005). “I predict,” he wrote, “that [Maio’s] anti-Israel record will bring a lot of cash and a lot of volunteers to the cause of her more moderate opponent. Can’t she imagine the literature that will surely be mailed to Berkeley voters showing her picture right next to that now famous picture of Corrie’s contorted face burning the American flag? Does she think that only Berkeley’s Jewish community will care about this?”
I’ve never suggested Gertz would do anything illegal. But how many of us would run for mayor if we knew in advance we’d have to use most of our funds countering a barrage of hit pieces on a fringe issue most voters know little about? Gertz’s current assertion that he’d “help make [Maio’s and Worthington’s] misguided foreign policy a central issue of the campaign,” is a veiled reminder of his previous naked threat. Yes, Mr. Gertz, unfortunately, “that’s democracy.” But for those of us fed up with the power wealthy special interest groups have over our political choices, it’s also “nefarious.”
Joanna Graham
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OREGON STREET
Editors, Daily Planet:
Dan McMullan’s hyperventilating about racism notwithstanding (Letters, April 28), most of the folks—white, African American, and other—that I know here on Oregon Street are pretty much opposed to people of any color buying and selling drugs here, and leaving their used condoms and hypodermic needles for our kids to find. We’ve called in many drug deals where the buyers were white frat boys, and also had to chase off the white teenage prostitute who was hanging out here. And for years, the Moores’ drug operation at 1610 Oregon included two quite Caucasian dealers, Charles and David Szakas. My wife overheard Charles boasting about how he’d just gotten out of jail after doing time for armed robbery with a knife, and David was ultimately arrested for possession of drugs inside 1610. He was also observed up the street at the tot lot trying to recruit neighborhood kids to serve as lookouts. My neighbors and I worked closely with the police to get them out of the neighborhood. It’s been my perception that the drug trade around here is pretty colorblind—as is the opposition to it.
Oh, and as for McMullan’s observation that “a court ruling from Commissioner Rantzman is akin to a lawful order from Adolf Hitler,” he will be interested to learn that Rantzman’s unequivocal ruling against Lenora Moore was echoed by Judge Wynne Carville when the case came to him on appeal, so there’s another Hitlerian judge here in Berkeley! What are the odds?
Paul Rauber
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NASTY NAMES
Editors, Daily Planet:
Dan McMullan obviously has the rights accorded him under the Constitution to express, in a free press, what he chooses—that’s the beauty of a democracy.
He can weigh in on the neighborhood conflict around Lenore Moore, can call his fellow residents cold, distant, scary, racists and bigots. He can evoke Adolf Hitler. No problem, Dan.
But when you’ve used all the nastiest names to describe ordinary people—flawed people who are just trying their best, just as their neighbors are—what will you use to alert us to real threats to our democracy?
Jill Posener
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INCIDENT
Editors, Daily Planet:
At about 3:45 p.m. Sunday, April 30, disabled activist Danny McMullen had pulled his motorized wheelchair with a trailer attached into the driveway of People’s Park when he was informed by two police officers that vehicles or carts were not allowed in People’s Park. As Mr. McMullen was using the trailer cart to transport his two sons to the free meal being served by the Catholic Worker, Mr. McMullen refused to move his wheel chair. He was ordered to procure his ID, and when he refused to do this, Officer Uranus, Badge No. 84, put his hand on Mr. Mc Mullen, at which Mr. McMullen ordered the officer to remove his hand, and when the officer did not, Mr. McMullen got up and expectorated upon aforementioned officer, at which he was forced to the ground and handcuffed after a protracted struggle and the arrival of another eight or 10 cops of various stripes.
Arthur Fonseca
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CLARIFIATION
Editors, Daily Planet:
There has been some confusion regarding my support for the Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza and Transit Area Design Plan. At this time, I have not endorsed a preferred alternative. Option 4, the “historical transit” alternative, provides a strong pedestrian orientation with sweeping east-west vistas at Center Street while successfully integrating BART with planned dedicated bus lanes. Option 3 also merits serious consideration, as it creates high-quality public open space and significantly improves pedestrian safety at University Avenue and access to BART. The feasibility of modifying Option 3 to accommodate an extended dedicated bus lane should be explored. Option 4 provides additional public open space when combined with Center Street closure east of Shattuck. I am not as impressed by Options 1 and 2. Option 1 is too timid and similar to existing conditions. Option 2 is even more convoluted and confusing than the street layout today. I encourage community members to get involved in the public planning process to help shape the future of Downtown Berkeley. If you ever walk, bicycle, ride the bus, or drive through Downtown Berkeley, we want to know what you think.
Sarah Syed
Transportation Commission, Chair
Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza Community Advisory Committee, Member
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UC POLICIES
Editors, Daily Planet:
I wonder if other Daily Planet readers caught the ugly irony in the April 25 San Francisco Chronicle between the headline story re UC’s top employees gorging themselves at the public trough and the Nevius column in the Bay Area section on Cal’s crackdown on the free box in People’s Park. There is a connection.
It’s clear that to UC execs, higher education means two things. One, attaining higher salaries and perks by any means necessary, e.g. enrolling in a compensation plan one doesn’t qualify for (Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau) and two, upping the cost of a free public education.
The free box, a small visible gesture of sharing our excess, is still too strong a threat to the system that serves UC administrators so well. Therefore, they have physically destroyed the free box. UC administrators have pledged allegiance to the unfree box for everyone but themselves.
I hope concerned readers e/write the Berkeley City Council urging them to approve of a free box on city property adjacent to People’s Park as a citizen right unto itself, and as a rebuke to the sweet deals UC execs are gobbling up at taxpayer expense.
Maris Arnold
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IMMIGRATION
Editors, Daily Planet:
In the middle of the 19th century, Arizona, California, Texas, New Mexico, Utah, and parts of Colorado were part of the nation of Mexico. Who then are the true immigrants? “Manifest Destiny,” the shameful rationalization for the butchering of Mexicans and Native Americans led to the present day false hubbub about restricting access to our country from especially Mexicans who have a historical right to be here.
Robert Blau
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OIL PROFITS
Editors, Daily Planet:
The oil companies are ripping us off, big time. Each quarter, their profits are record profits; meaning that each quarter, their profits are more than ever before. They blame high gas prices on the price of crude oil, but their obscenely high profits show this to be a lie. It is simple greed.
We need energy independence. That means more investment in solar, wind, and other renewable sources of energy. I don’t trust the oil companies to make those investments, and neither should you.
We need a retroactive Obscene Profits Tax on the oil companies to redirect funds toward energy independence.
It is time for Congress to show some political courage.
Bruce Joffe
Piedmont
