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Tempers flared and jeers erupted Monday night at the first public meeting of the task force outlining the scope of a major private development on public land. 

The occasion was the first public meeting of the South Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation’s (SBNDC) Ashby BART Task Force, the group charged by the city with setting the parameters for development on the station’s main parking lot. 

The City Council endorsed a grant to fund the first stages of development of a mixed use housing and retail complex at the site in December, a move that has sparked anxiety in the nearby neighborhood. 

The loudest opposition Monday—expressed in frequent yells and one drawn-out chant—came primarily from those who occupy the site, at least for two days a week, Berkeley Flea Market vendors and their supporters. 

They, and some neighbors, said they were concerned that they’d been shut out of a process they suspected was careening towards a predetermined goal. 

Once inside, they found little to reassure themselves. 

The key participants were seated with their backs to the public, a point not lost on Osha Neumann, a civil rights attorney who is both an immediate neighbor of the project and the flea market’s legal representative. 

“These people had their backs to us when we came in,” Neumann said during a comment period. “That is very strange.” 

Ed Church, the professional development specialist hired to oversee the development, left the chairing duties to Taj Johns, a neighborhood liaison with the city manager’s office. 

Earlier rally  

Spectators were primed by the time they walked into the meeting, fired up during a rally outside the South Berkeley Senior Center that started a half hour before the task force’s scheduled 7 p.m. meeting inside. 

Colorful signs adorned the sidewalk, and speaker after speaker rose either to defend the flea market or to denounce Mayor Tom Bates and City Councilmember Max Anderson—or both. 

Two of the speakers, former Planning Commission Chair Zelda Bronstein and Zachary RunningWolf, have announced their candidacies for mayor, and both had harsh things to say about the incumbent. 

“We’ve lost control of city government,” said Bronstein. “It’s as if we don’t exist.” 

“We really need to put the brakes on this,” said RunningWolf, predicting the proposed project would doom the political careers of Bates and Anderson. 

Andrea Pritchett of Copwatch and Community Services United, the umbrella group of local nonprofits that sponsors the popular weekend market, acted as chair of the rally. 

The event even featured a song, with singer and guitarist Mas-Allah belting out his “Flea Market Blues.” 

Nancy Threatt, a neighbor, said she was concerned about the makeup of the task force. “It should be folks from census tract 4240—right over there,” she said. “I have trouble with people from all over.” 

“We’re going to end up like Emeryville,” said Dean Smith, an artist and project neighbor. “Development has run amok, and it is happening here, with Mayor Bates and our councilman, Max Anderson, who is basically selling down the river.” 

Election 

Another board move raised more questions, with the Johns announcement that a group of task force members had meet in private Saturday to design the shape of Monday night’s meeting. 

“Why weren’t we told?” yelled one member of the audience, a question immediately taken up by others. 

Then came the election of officers—co-chairs as it turned out—in action that ended almost as soon as it began with Berkeley Unified School District board member John Selawsky nominating himself and proposing that co-chairs be installed, at least initially. 

Selawsky reeled off a list of his qualifications as chair and member of various civic bodies, to be followed to the microphone by Toya Groves, who said she had no leadership experience, proposing herself as co-chair. 

A resident of Blake Street in West Berkeley, Selawsky isn’t a project neighbor. Groves, however, is. 

“I nominate Osha Neumann,” came a yell from the audience, winning immediate cheers from others in the boisterous crowd, who were still facing the backs of the task force. 

“I accept,” said Neumann. 

“How many want Osha Neumann to be chair?” yelled Kenoli Oleari, a critic of the project from its inception. 

More cheers followed. 

But, as Neumann later told the audience, the would-be candidate had declined to serve on the task force “because I wouldn’t sign a loyalty oath” saying he endorsed the process, which had been formalized at a December City Council meeting. 

“The volunteers should be co-chairs,” said task force member Dan Cloak. 

And with that, Selawsky and Groves were installed—though Johns continued to run the meeting, the new officers to take effect at the group’s next session. 

More chaos 

Johns then charged into first of the two items listed on the meeting’s half-sheet agenda—setting ground rules and a talk by a BART official. 

She added one more topic: “topics from the audience” for the task force to address, which would be discussed in subgroups and then reported on at the group’s regular meetings. 

“Why didn’t we have any input?” yelled Oleari. “We want to talk about the process,” yelled another audience member. 

“We can’t do this like this,” responded Johns, only to be greeted by another cacophony of yells, followed by the prolonged chanting of “Open it up and shut it down!” 

An elderly woman from the audience picked up the microphone and declared, “I want to hear both sides.” With a little more prompting, and an assist from another woman in the audience, she managed to quiet the crowd, at least for a moment. 

Johns then opened the mics to the audience, giving speakers a minute each to offer suggested rules. But most comments were criticisms of the project, and on Johns herself—with Pritchett accusing her of lying at one point, and earning the response, “I walked with integrity in this world. I am not lying.” 

Robert Lauriston, a neighborhood land use activist and creator of the Nabart.com website which features more up-to-date project information than the SBNDC’s Southberkeley.org site (where the last posting was March 17 as of Wednesday evening), called on the task force to sever ties with the SBNDC. 

“No organization or profession should be privileged,” Lauriston said. 

Comments 

While many said they wanted nothing new at the site, others said they supported a project on the station’s main parking lot—provided many of the units are reserved for those with low incomes. 

Any project should have space for the flea market, any housing built should have a large proportion permanently reserved for low-income people, and the project should include areas available for community use, said John Warren, director of Unconditional Theatre and a member of the AshbyArts District. 

Steve Gold of the LeConte Neighborhood association seconded Warren’s suggestion, “but we really need to do it right.” 

Karen Hilton was more skeptical, declaring—as would others—that the project should be move out of a racially mixed neighborhood, where it would only result in further gentrification, and be placed instead at the North Berkeley BART station. 

Marge Wilkinson agreed, saying she had moved to South Berkeley to live in an integrated working class neighborhood. 

“The task force here hasn’t been on the up-and-up,” said Erica Cleary, a Prince Street neighborhood activist. “The task force has a chance of doing something good, but the only way is if they separate from the SBNDC and the project manager and take the reins. Wouldn’t that be wonderful.” 

Near the end, Johns literally pulled the plug on Oleari after he ignored her “time is up” admonitions and she reached down and disconnected his microphone. 

BART’s agenda 

Jeffrey Ordway, BART’s manager of project development, almost didn’t get to speak, until the audience critics reluctantly agreed to suspend the comment period following a show of hands vote that Johns said “looks like a tie to me.” 

In the 1960s, Ordway said, BART isolated its stations by surrounding them with asphalt parking lots “on the assumption that you only got to them by auto.” 

The agency is now trying to reverse the practice, both to integrate all its stations into their communities and to raise more funds for the agency so it can reduce public subsidies. 

He said BART is returning to a strategy adopted by railroads in the 19th Century, when they created developments around their stations. 

An added benefit for local governments is that by allowing private development, BART puts the property back on the tax rolls. By encouraging housing and retail uses, additional car trips are reduced and alternative transportation use is encouraged. 

After a shouted question from the audience, however, he acknowledged that some questions remain about the air rights over the Ashby BART lot, an issue Johns promised to explore with the city. 

Those rights, claimed by the city, control development at heights more than 10 feet over the lot. 

Another comment period followed, with little new said, but lots of it. 

Future meets 

Selawsky and Groves are scheduled to take the helm for the next task force meeting, scheduled for June 5. Another session has been booked for the 19th, and more will be scheduled later, according to a flyer distributed before the meeting.