Public Comment

BERKELEY ARTS MAGNET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was sad to see the Berkeley Unified School District crash and burn the arts program at Berkeley Arts Magnet (BAM). As an East Coast native, it truly shocked me to see that BUSD integrates sixth graders with the middle school system. This is may be a cliche, but cliches are born for a reason—middle school is where all the bad stuff starts gaining traction. I never saw a cigarette or a bottle of booze until I started attending seventh grade in New York. The alley behind the school was full of my former elementary school classmates and I was thinking, “Huh? When did that start up?” When I asked the previous principal why BAM had a sixth grade she said, “When I talk to sixth grade teachers at King about recess, they say the kids just hang out. At BAM they still play. They are also at an age where they want to and can mentor younger children. They put on shows—Halloween haunted houses etc. It’s great!” So, on that level, BUSD has made an error by consolidating sixth graders with teen/preteens. 

On the next level, as BUSD chases state and federal money by score grubbing, kids that otherwise would have had a concentrated outlet for creativity, now have to march in order like BORG androids to the bare minimal curriculum. I hate to say this, but when I look at my daughter’s kindergarten class activities it looks pretty boring to me. Let’s not get into why my kindergartener has to be at a level of achievement that would have sufficed for first grade 20 years ago... 

Not all of us want to be software engineers and lawyers when we grow up. I had an extensive music and arts education in elementary school up to sixth grade and beyond. It didn’t make me a flakey artist. I work at a successful start-up in the Silicon Valley where, ironically, creativity and good design is essential to good software. Well-rounded people usually make productive, well-adjusted people—a fact that George Bush, the Feds, the state and now BUSD just don’t get. The decision was made to make BUSD and its bureaucrats’ lives easier, not to make a better school. The sixth grade BAM arts program was one of the main reasons why I chose this school for my daughter. Now what do we call this place? BAM, Berkeley Arts Magnet? I guess it’s back to the future with Whittier.  

Justin Lee 

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SUNSHINE IN BERKELEY? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Could it be that Berkeley, bestowed with a reputation of progressivism and democracy, has a governing body, the City Council, which does not encourage open government? How else can we explain holding the March 20 Sunshine Ordinance Workshop with only 20 minutes for Public Comment and at 5 p.m. when most working people could not attend? There also were not sufficient copies for members of the public of materials given by panel speakers to councilmembers. Furthermore, unbeknownst to most, the matter was continued for action to that evening’s City Council meeting and addressed last around 10 p.m. when no more than a half dozen members of the public remained in the council chambers.  

The capping climax was Mayor Bates’ failure to call for Public Comment on the Sunshine Ordinance item before recognizing a councilmember’s motion. This flagrant violation of the Brown Act, which mandates Public Comment before or during discussion of an agenda item, was called to the mayor’s attention. Then three members of the public were allowed to speak before action was taken to refer the Sunshine Ordinance item to the mayor and city manager to submit recommendations to proceed on April 24.  

Mark this council date on your calendar and attend the council meeting to call for a truly open government Sunshine Ordinance! 

Gene Bernardi 

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SCHOOL VOLUNTEERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley School Volunteers would like to thank you for your front-page coverage of the 14th annual (Drop Everything and Read Day (DEAR) in your March 16 edition. The event was a huge success, with 165 volunteers reading to over 3,600 students in Berkeley’s public elementary and preschools. There are many groups we would like to thank who participated including Bayer Healthcare, Berkeley Rotary, Berkeley Public Library, the City of Berkeley, the Berkeley Police and Fire Departments, and the University of California, Berkeley. We have had overwhelmingly positive feedback from the teachers, readers, and the community at large. Many people have asked if there are other ways they can be involved as volunteers in the schools. The answer is yes! We have a wide array of volunteer opportunities in every grade level from preschool through high school. Our volunteers work in a variety of settings: classrooms, after-school programs, playgrounds, and even school gardens. For more information, please call our office at 644-8833, e-mail us at bsv@berkeley.k12.ca.us, or visit our website, www.bpef-online.org. On the website you will also find information about the Berkeley Public Education Foundation, which provides financial support for Berkeley School Volunteers and works in partnership with the BUSD on many other initiatives to support our schools. 

Thank you again, and we look forward to bringing the Berkeley community closer to our schools. 

Michelle Khazai,  

Director, Berkeley School Volunteers 

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TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While reading my paper aboard one of AC Transit’s fine old NABI buses, I had a transit-oriented epiphany. It was set off by the Planet’s articles about the Trans-Bay Ferry and about AC Transit buying more Van Hool buses. My epiphany was to realize that public policy favors toys, not transit. We buy big beautiful Belgian buses and fast ferries, but have little concern for the comfort, convenience and security of current bus riders, or for making more bus riders out of car drivers. MTC makes policy based on counting the movement of cars, not people. The ferry plans call for a large waterfront parking lot. We know that cars cause greenhouse gas, yet we let policy promote cars. When I think of the ferry, I see cold-started engines spreading fumes over the bay, and the warming sea rising to cover the bayside parking lot. We really don’t need that ferry if it’s for car drivers. We have an opportunity to follow other great cities and put Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) on Telegraph Avenue, but a lot of us don’t see the BRT moving people; instead we see street parking being removed and car traffic diverted into neighborhoods. By getting 60 cars off the road per BRT busload, we’d eliminate a lot of greenhouse gas. We really need the BRT, not more parking. As I emerged from my epiphany, I saw great transportation elements for the Berkeley Downtown Area Plan: 

• Discourage downtown workers from parking all day; put priority on short-term parking (as TDM study recommended back in 2000). 

• Establish a city-run agency to help businesses provide transit passes to employees. 

• Deploy the BRT on Telegraph; give it priority over car traffic so that people will flock to ride it instead of drive. 

• Encourage specialized shuttle services, like the Alta Bates bus, between major employment centers and BART stations. 

• Set up incentives for car-free leases of downtown apartments. 

• Encourage parking for car-share close to apartment buildings. 

• Encourage the Trans-Bay Ferry, but board it from a bus stop, not a parking lot. 

Steve Geller 

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SMOKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Smokers are still lighting up in public spaces including bus stops, rehab centers and sidewalks, which makes me think that non-smokers don’t have the right to enjoy living a healthy life. I believe we are capable of restraining this unmindful act of hurting others by making the air everyone breathes more toxic. We need air without any extra carbon monoxide and nicotine added in, especially in public areas frequented by old and infirm neighbors. Who would want non-smokers to suffer from asthma simply because they spend hours waiting for buses at bus stops where smokers gather? What steps can city, county or state government take to protect non-smokers from second hand smoke?  

Can we keep the cigarette business from flourishing in residential areas or close to the dorms of college students? I urge health policy administrators to look to this public problem. 

Romila Khanna 

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CELL PHONES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The time has come. No putting it off. To preserve my sanity, or what’s left of it, I’m looking into one of those anger management classes we hear so much about of late. What, you may ask, is the reason for my anger? I can sum it up in two words: cell phones. Or, put more succinctly, “those damn cell phones!” 

I believe I can state in all honesty, that I’ve always had a fairly even temperament. No built-up resentment, no flying off the handle, definitely no road rage. One might even say I possess a decidedly sunny nature. But in recent years all that has changed. All because of cell phones. I often question just why it is that I harbor such ill feelings for this innocent, non-threatening object that has now become an accepted part of our society. I can only rationalize that my hostility comes from the fact that I’m up to here with people all around me spouting off, at the top of their lungs, matters in which I have absolutely no interest. Sitting on Bart or AC Transit, I really don’t need to hear about peoples’ love lives, their financial problems, their in-laws, their hiatus hernias, or their political views. When dining in a restaurant, I don’t appreciate a man sitting at the next table dictating a memo to his secretary. Walking down the street, I do a slow burn when the blonde bimbo behind me describes in great detail a fight she had with her boyfriend. Needless to say, drivers who talk on their cell phones when making a left turn at a busy intersection during rush hours should be lined up at dawn before a firing squad! 

Lately, while strolling through the UC campus, I’ve been doing a count of students talking into their beloved cell phones and iPods. Talk, talk, talk—that’s all they do. The thought occurs to me, will the next generation enter this world with cell phone appendages to their ears? And I feel a sense of sadness. Why this great need for incessant talking? Don’t people think anymore? As they hurry to their destination, do they never meditate, gaze admiringly at the lovely spring flowers and blue sky, or dream of what they hope to do with their lives? Could it be that this world of ours is in such a troubled, chaotic state that young people prefer not to contemplate a future they perceive as ominous and threatening? 

There’s no denying that cell phones serve a very useful purpose in our daily lives when instant communication is sometimes necessary. But to me there’s almost a surreal atmosphere in a society where people everywhere are obsessed with a need for constant conversation on cell phones. But then, I have my own obsessions, don’t I? That being my hatred for this instrument of the devil! 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

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FANTASY BUILDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for calling attention to what’s happening with the Fantasy Building. It appears that the issues surrounding this building capsulize the limitations of a market economy as we’ve constructed it and as it is deconstructing us. The developer in wanting to upgrade his building and charge higher rents is forcing out the very tenants whose hard work and inspiration brought value to his property to begin with. Furthermore, his actions will tear apart a community of artists who have built collaborative relationships over decades.  

Of course this is the same tactic that our corporations are permitted, and even encouraged, to use. They take advantage of tax breaks, research subsidies, educational infrastructures, transportation infrastructures, the sacrifices of their employees and their communities, and then claim all the credit, and often significant profit, for what was a collaborative achievement. Then they run to the next town, state, country, often abandoning those they should be responsible to and start the cycle of exploitation all over again leaving devastation in their wake. If this kind of uncompromising self-interest and associated egotistical preening is a good idea it is lost on me. I hope we are reaching the end of the line for this particular form of hubris and greed and deception. 

Berkeley has an opportunity with the Fantasy Building for setting yet another meaningful precedent...for finding a solution that satisfies all interests and that deeply considers the context and the people that have created a thriving artistic environment through their own hard work and sacrifice and the support of their community. The developer’s interest and needs deserve consideration, they are just not more important than the needs of his tenants, or the broader community that those tenants inspire and educate through their work. 

It’s time we put a stake through the heart of the free market monster before it eats us all. We can start with a Fantasy and perhaps end with a dream...an economic model that is thoughtfully considerate and not rapacious. 

James Cisney 

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NUMBER II 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Number II is out of control. George W. Bush wasn’t kidding when he took on the name “The War President.” Bush II says he will veto any measure that brings his war to a close. Continuing to use the “troops” as a crutch, W keeps funding flowing to his disaster in the desert. How many more people will have die in the Iraqi war games before the American people say enough is enough.  

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

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KUWAIT CHOW HALL:  

WOULD MICHELIN GIVE IT THREE STARS? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m at an unnamed U.S. airbase in Kuwait and getting ready to fly out to Baghdad tonight. But first things first. I mean visiting combat zones is nice and all that but did your mother teach you ANYTHING? Nothing is more important than food! First let’s talk about food.  

My first impression upon walking into the airbase commissary tent was, “Wow!” They handed me a plate and then served me one-fourth of a chicken, broccoli, mashed potatoes and green beans. High-end cafeteria food but tasty and lots of it. I heaped up on that. Mama, I’m home! Vitamins. High fiber. Anti-oxidants. Fruit. Eat your vegetables, troops! 

Then I discovered the salad bar. And the coffee bar. And the juice bar. And the soda bar and the cold bottled water. “But Jane,” I asked myself. “What about dessert?” 

Chocolate pudding and ice cream bars. Not Chez Panisse or nothing but good. And the ambiance was great. For an Army canteen, it was like Better Homes and Gardens—red table cloths and silken flowers tastefully arranged in ceramic vases. Plus lots of really hot dudes dressed in khaki and camo walking around with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. 

I was about to give this place a whole bunch of Michelin stars for sure—but when I finally sat down at my tastefully-decorated table and started to eat, I discovered that every wall in the chow hall had at least two giant plasma TVs nailed up next to the air conditioners and every single one of them was turned to Fox News! Eeuuww.  

Watching Bill O’Reilly interviewing some lady from the Heritage Foundation while eating? That’s just gross! Two big thumbs down. 

But then the place almost kinda redeemed itself because when I was about to walk out, I noticed that I had missed something hidden over by the exit door—the dessert bar! Four flavors of cheesecake, tubs full of all kinds of ice cream, a frozen smoothie machine including toppings and cones, three kinds of chocolate cake and my all-time favorite —PUMPKIN PIE! Dump that loser O’Reilly and this place would definitely get two thumbs up from me! 

Jane Stillwater 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Berkeley resident Jane Stillwater is blogging during her trip to Iraq at http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com. This is her first dispatch from her travels in the Middle East.