Public Comment

Over the summer I read What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank. Kansas voters regularly vote to humiliate and destroy their state, enriching and empowering the privileged class, and weakening and impoverishing regular folk. We Berkeleyans are too smart to fall into that trap. Or are we? 

We will see when we vote on Measure J, the ballot initiative that will preserve our existing Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO), a mainstay of citizen power in Berkeley since 1974. The alternative to Measure J is an LPO rewrite that weakens our landmarking procedures, orchestrated by Mayor Bates in alliance with frustrated developers. So a no vote on Measure J means a yes vote for Mayor Bates’ LPO revision.  

Our current LPO is a profoundly progressive law that has done its job for three decades. The LPO hasn’t prevented more than 1,400 units of new housing units from being approved and built in Berkeley in the past four years. Nobody ever went broke because their property was landmarked (landmarking increases property values). No “hysterical preservationists” ever landmarked anything that a majority of the council did not support. In fact, although it’s easy to trivialize unusual landmarkings, most Berkeleyans are quite happy with their landmarking protections, and even skeptics rarely disagree with landmarks once they know the facts. The LPO has never violated state law (as some opponents claim), but the state has suggested several minor improvements, which are incorporated into Measure J.  

If you aren’t interested in the details, when the glossy disinformation starts arriving, just ask yourself: Who has the motive and resources to champion and finance a campaign to weaken our LPO by defeating Measure J? Your neighbors? No. “Moderate” preservationists? No. It’s a small group of developers and realtors who stand to get much richer, much quicker, without it. Do they have your interests at heart? Hmmm, let’s see…  

The Bates revision substantially reduces the public’s opportunity to landmark properties and respond to developments. One damaging provision is called the “request for determination” (RFD). In this new process, developers can, without revealing that they intend to propose an unwelcome development, hire “experts” to argue that their existing property has no historical value to the community. If someone from the community fails to step forward to prove otherwise, which requires 40-plus hours of unpaid labor, nobody may landmark the property for two years. By the time the public realizes a demolition is intended, or understands how an existing building may contribute to the historical fabric of their neighborhood, they will be helpless to stop the wrecking ball. 

Preservationists oppose RFD, because they understand the difficulty of educating citizens about their neighborhoods, and motivating them to undertake landmarkings. No other city in America has such a provision, because the inevitable outcome is unexamined demolitions. But this seems to be exactly what the Bates revision intends, because staff first omitted, and then opposed, making sure the public would know about its impending loss of landmarking rights in time to exercise them—even in cases where there was no deadline, no project to delay, and no hurry. The council did not remedy this. Please ask yourself why.  

Who is to be trusted here? Who will administer the Bates revision and the RFD? It will be the same city staff that opposes, shrinks, and trivializes timely and comprehensive noticing. The same staff that regularly obstructs citizen efforts to protect historic properties. The same staff that once tried to enable an illegal demolition by keeping a landmarking secret from the Zoning Adjustments Board. The same staff that obstructed the Landmark Preservation Commission’s attempts to update the LPO. This staff has very little respect for citizens, and it has a zealous antagonism to historical preservation, which is partly institutional: the planning department is financed by fees for developments requiring demolitions. It would be foolish to give them new, tricky mechanisms to disarm the public. 

Some preservationists tried hard to make the Bates revision acceptable. Only when backed by the threat of referendum or initiative were preservationists able to make headway. But unfortunately, the improvements were inadequate and perhaps impermanent. The council’s unwillingness to remove or improve the RFD, which is incompatible with community-based landmarking, verified that their intent is not to “improve” landmarking, but to undermine it. Therefore, I decided to support Measure J. 

Initiatives occur when the public loses trust in government. Most citizen initiatives are written and publicized by amateurs, and most initiatives fail. And relying on the ballot in a city where most residents are too comfortable to pay much attention to activities across town is a huge gamble. So God help us. Let’s hope we’re smarter than the people in Kansas. 

Measure J was written by several experienced Berkeley preservationists, guided by the state’s suggestions. Some opponents criticize Measure J because it was drafted “privately,” while thousands of hours of “democratic” work went into the Bates revision. It is true that several commissions had their fingers in the Bates revision (one reason it was such a mess), but they were all preservation and development insiders. Almost nobody else in Berkeley knew that their LPO was being overhauled. Did you ever receive a public notice about it? When the public finally spoke, over 90 percent of them opposed the Bates revision, but the council approved it anyway. What’s “democratic” about that? On the other hand, initiatives are, in theory, as democratic as you can get, although in practice, underfunded citizen initiatives are often defeated by monied interests.  

It’s unfortunate that so many people wasted so much time on the Bates revision, but it’s entirely irrelevant to voters. While the petulant developers PAC their war chest, and the fissiparous preservationists argue about “integrity” (of both buildings and people), regular folk need to wake up and smell the brown shingles. They have two choices: 

Behind Door No. 1 is Measure J, an improved version of the current LPO, a perfectly fine law that empowers the public. A yes vote on Measure J guarantees that special interests cannot hack our LPO to death again without the consent of the governed.  

Behind Door No. 2 is the open-ended Bates revision, which reduces the public input and control that has helped keep Berkeley charming for 30 years. If Measure J is defeated, the development community and City Council will assume that most Berkeleyans want a handful of developers to redesign our historical cityscape. Development proposals will become even more arrogant. At any time the Bates LPO could be revised to weaken our landmarking rights even further. For Berkeley voters to disempower themselves this way would be insane. Kansas, anyone? 

Please vote yes on Measure J if you believe in historical and neighborhood preservation. Please vote yes on Measure J to maintain your current power over the cityscape of Berkeley. Please vote yes on Measure J if you believe in self-government and not government by insiders. Keep your power, or vote it away: that’s the choice.  

If Berkeleyans are foolish enough to diminish their own influence over the look, feel, and cultural assets of their community, in a few years someone may write a book called What’s the Matter with Berkeley? And there may be plenty to write about. 

Sharon Hudson is a Berkeley resident. 

Opinions expressed in Daily Planet commentary and letters to the editor are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Daily Planet or its staff.