Public Comment
Letters to the Editor
ROUGH LANGUAGE
Editors, Daily Planet:
I really enjoy your paper, but why don’t you respect your readers enough to not include letters to the editor using offensive language (“Wish It Were True,” June 12)? Give me a break! I think I and the rest of your readership can comprehend what someone is trying to say without the derogatory, filthy verbiage!
Look up, not down!
Ms. Lee Glover-Owens
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IMMODEST PROPOSALS
Editors, Daily Planet:
I have some immodest proposals that could work:
Health care: We all want the same plan that members of congress enjoy.
Waste, fuel: I’d like to see our biochemists work on turning the biomass we call “garbage” into biofuel.
Visas for skilled workers: In addition, let’s grow our own techies, nurses, scientists and, yes, artists by teaching the bright eyed children now stuck in underfunded schools all they want and need to learn. That might help to reduce crime, also. Imagine gangs of computer kids!
English as a Second Language on TV. Tired workers would not have to go out to a class or find a babysitter. Their children would benefit also. Other useful information could be included.
Israel and Palestine: Junior year in Palestine for Israeli students and junior year in Israel for Palestinians. No more bombing.
Those projects are expensive. Pay for them with peace.
Ruth Bird
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IMMIGRATION
Editors, Daily Planet:
Legalization of immigrants is widely backed in America, and yet, day after day, month after month, the immigration debate has been pushed in newspapers, on talk radio and Fox News, by a fringe minority of law and order types and angry white folk. Writers who barely disguise their discrimination and contempt for Mexicans and Latinos behind phony excuses that border on pathetic.
These hypocrites are all too ready to take advantage of the services provided by immigrant laborers while at the same time hiding behind their coffee shop ignorance and fake patriotism?
Ron Lowe
Grass Valley
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BUS RAPID TRANSIT
Editors, Daily Planet:
Transit is a vital tool to fight global warming, petroleum dependence and sprawl. To entice people out of their cars, cities need a robust transit network that can get citizens where they need to go quickly and in comfort.
AC Transit’s new transit proposal, the East Bay bus rapid transit (BRT) is generating much discussion. So what benefits can BRT offer the Bay Area?
BRT can promote more sustainable transportation choices. In a survey of Los Angeles Orange Line riders, about 80 percent said they got to the station on foot, bike or transit, and 18 percent said they left their car at home to use the BRT. In Eugene, Oregon, the new EmX BRT has increased corridor ridership by 50 percent in just six months.
By attracting more people to transit, BRT can help fight global warming.Transportation accounts for one-third of US greenhouse gas emissions, and private cars are responsible for over half of that amount.
BRT costs less than other rapid transit options, which means you can build more of it and faster. In the case of the East Bay BRT, the most expensive option costs around $24 million per mile. Most new light rail systems cost at least $45 million per mile, and many cost much more.
Of course, some challenges need to be overcome to achieve these benefits.
First, some see BRT as taking space and priority away from cars. The key question is, what is your vision for your community? If you aspire to provide mobility mainly by car, any transit system will be seen as a bad investment. A well-designed transit service can reduce car trips, mitigating the impact of losing some road space or parking.
Second, buses can carry a negative image, sometimes rightly so. Here in the United States, we have under-invested in buses, even though they provide the majority of our transit trips. We allow them to get mired in traffic, with shortly-spaced stops further slowing the ride, and give passengers little more than a sign post at the side of the road. BRT resolves these problems and puts transit investment where it should be.
Where properly implemented, BRT has achieved tremendous success, providing premium transit service at a reasonable cost.
Lisa Callaghan
Breakthrough Technologies Institute,
Washington, D.C.
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IMPROVING
PUBLIC COMMENT
Editors, Daily Planet:
Kudos to Mayor Bates for changing the format of public comment at City Council meetings in response to SuperBOLD’s 2006 threat of a lawsuit against choosing speakers by lottery. Members of the public are now afforded several opportunities to speak: on Consent Calendar items, on each Action item as it comes up and on non-agenda items.
The latest edict on public comment titled “Welcome to Your Council Meeting” prepared by city attorney/city clerk indicates “the City Council is currently experimenting with its public comment procedures.” The mayor has been experimenting for almost a year now. Councilmember Kriss Worthington has submitted for Council consideration, Recommendation No. 5, to be on next Tuesday’s June 19 agenda, to revise existing Resolution No. 53, 575-N.S. which covers public comment in order to incorporate those exemplary procedures that the mayor has instituted. The recommendation will also remove those portions of the “Welcome…”, which, despite the prohibitions of the Brown Act, indicate the mayor may ask all persons in support of an item to stand (next, all those in opposition) and “the mayor will then entertain one speaker in opposition and follow the same process as for the speaker in support.” Allowing the mayor to select who will speak for or against an item is more egregious than selecting speakers at random by lottery and therefore certainly as illegal.
The “Welcome…” also states the mayor retains the ability to limit the number of speakers speaking on a subject depending on the number of speakers and the number of items on the council agenda that night.” Worthington’s recommendation, rather than deny anyone the right to speak, instead, allows the Mayor to reduce the amount of time per speaker from two minutes to 1.5 minutes when there are six to nine speakers, and to one minute when there are 10 or more speakers.
At the Tuesday June 12 meeting, throughout the evening, there were 29 speakers, each allowed two minutes, and despite considerable time spent on proclamations, awards and honorees at the beginning of the meeting, the council taking breaks totaling 20-plus minutes, and dealing with the contentious Public Commons Initiative, the meeting ended about 10:20 p.m. before the official max of 11 p.m.
Worthington’s agenda recommendation No. 5 also places public comment on non-agenda items, required by the Brown Act, after public comment on the Consent Calendar. The “Welcome…” places it at the very end of the agenda. Not only has the mayor failed to call, without reminder, for such comment at the end of meetings, but most individuals, if not all, who have come to speak on non-agenda matters, with which they feel the city should be concerned, have left before the meeting’s end feeling most unwelcomed and unheard.
If you support the Brown Act’s intent that all willing members of the public must be allowed to speak before the City Council, commissions, boards and task forces, please come to the Tuesday June 19 council meeting at 7 p.m. and express your support for Item No. 5.
Gene Bernardi
SuperBOLD
(Berkeleyans Organizing
for Library Defense)
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TEACHING AND
LEARNING
Editors, Daily Planet:
Teaching is an art and state credentialing has nothing to do with the outcome in learning. The students learn in a conducive environment.
Every child or youth has a style to learn, if the classroom has a safe and positive environment where they are allowed to learn according to the way they are motivated and allowed to learn at their own speed. No forced curriculum of teaching science, math, or computer science can help them to focus in the class. It lies in the hand of a teacher to create the rich and learning environment for all children to learn. When interest is there, the learning takes place. The money or credentials or certificate is no proof of educating the young minds or youth in the classroom. It is the desire to learn some thing which will make them do any effort to inquire and expand their knowledge.
The education department must think to select the teaching force to impart education along such lines. I think that the No Child Left Behind Act will not help to raise the standard of learners, nor will charter schools help.
Romila Khanna
Albany
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THEM VS. US
Editors, Daily Planet:
The new immigration reform bill is generating a category 5 news hurricane with winds that expose prejudice, that is, the perceived differences between Them and Us.
Not since the House un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and the McCarthy era has the nation witnessed such virulent diatribes, such patriotic posturing, such self-serving intransigence.
Every conceivable position is in the wind: Deport them. Fence them out. Arrest them. No amnesty. No medical care. No schooling and no citizenship for their children.
Amend the constitution, if necessary. America for Americans!
There’s no room today for those “huddled masses” that Emma Lazarus’ Statue of Liberty poem welcomed over a century ago. Today’s true blue Americans must purify the nation, dispose of illegal and unwanted foreigners, quickly and righteously. If immigration laws need reform, then let them echo the spirit of the Walter-McCarren Act that 55 years ago set quotas that favored whites and disfavored non-whites.
Not since the Civil Rights Movement of 50 years ago has such widespread and intense hatred, anger, and meanness infected the body politic.
Marvin Chachere
San Pablo
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WARM POOL, ICELAND
Editors, Daily Planet:
Two articles in the June 12 Daily Planet have prompted me to present a solution to a couple of problems which, in my opinion, would result in the Berkeley community having a long-term win by save two unique Berkeley institutions, the warm water pool and Berkeley Iceland. To be clear up front, I am one of the leaders of the nonprofit organization trying to purchase, restore, and expand Berkeley Iceland as a recreation facility centered on our unique ice rink. A combination of the therapeutic warm pool with the ice rink can save both up front construction costs and the ongoing utilities costs that would make the combined facility strong enough to be self sustaining.
The Landmark Commission’s decision not to grant landmark status to the old Berkeley High gymnasium means that it is much less likely the current pool will survive BUSDs plans to replace the building. Alternative locations, such as the old Milvia street tennis courts or West Campus are likely to involve significantly greater costs than restoring the current site.
As Mayor Bates is quoted in the article on BUSD and city discussions that he has been approached about “...turning Berkeley Iceland possible relocation for the warm water pool...” In an earlier interview on KFOG morning radio show, Mayor Bates was even more positive on the energy benefits of combining the pool with the ice rink in a creative solution that helps preserve both.
Generating ice creates a lot of heat which can be used to warm the water for a pool. This results in lower costs for both sides. Combine this with a solar panel covered roof and it would result in a self-sustaining site which benefits the entire community.
Save Berkeley Iceland (SBI) has made an aggressive proposal to purchase Berkeley Iceland. Our plans have always been public and clear: update the ice rink, improve the facilities, expand the use to include broader community interests, and partner with the City, BUSD, and other community groups in what could be a new athletic district when combined with the BUSD plans for the new baseball field. While not part of our core plans, we have always hoped that the warm pool could find a home within the new “Berkeley Iceland Recreation Center.” If SBI is successful in it’s efforts to acquire Berkeley Iceland—and lack of confidence in our funding by the current owners is holding this back—we hope to have serious discussions with the city and those concerned about the long term home for the warm pool.
We believe that combining our institutions will strengthen them both to the benefit of the entire community.
Tom Killilea
Executive Director,
Save Berkeley Iceland
www.SaveBerkeleyIceland.org
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STRAWBERRY CANYON
Editors, Daily Planet:
To the biking community of Berkeley, care of the Daily Planet: The once luscious undergrowth of the beautiful redwood grove in Strawberry Canyon, called the Woodbridge-Metcalf Grove, where I’ve been hiking for 40 years, has been devastated by mountain bikes. The grove is part of what is called the “Ecological Study Area” of the university, where bicycles are prohibited. Bikers, however, ignore the sign and the campus police department doesn’t have enough resources to patrol the trails, particularly the one that leads through the grove. Hence, the undergrowth, that was once full of ferns, is now rutted and worn smooth by tires. I was told that other parts of the canyon around Grizzly Peak have also been ruined by cyclists.
Those of you who are concerned about the environment would do well to pay attention to your own backyard and do what you can to not only educate those among you who are so reckless, but to prevent them from causing further damage.
Pete Najarian
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RESPONSE TO STEWART
Editors, Daily Planet:
A response to Robert Stewart’s June 8 commentary, “Blacks Excluded from Yoshi’s and the Jazz School? No!”:
On balance, I concur with your sentiments (though your tone flirted too much with the hyperbolic and overly strident; even so, your passion was admirable). That said, I have a not-so-small quibble—everyone’s a critic—I thought worthy of quick address. It’s this one sentence:
“I’m quite tired of Blacks COMPLAINING, MARCHING, CRYING, and BEGGING to be where they are not wanted; This is DISGUSTING and PATHETIC, to say the least.”
In truth, I believe you mixed apples and oranges. Distinctions between words and phrases are important, especially when offered for public consumption. In my view, our people “complaining and marching” in no way should be linked, in the minds of non-blacks (and blacks for that matter), with the notion of our collective “crying and begging.” A common similar mistake is made when people lazily link complaints about there being too much “sex and violence” on TV, in the movies, etc. Explicit sexuality is one thing; depiction of graphic violence is another. Each birth very different socio-political babies which, in turn, spawn equally divergent public debate. Same applies with your unfortunate linkage above. Our “complaining and marching,” called by its other more appropriate affiliations, is also known as making our grievances known—“goin’ public,” and “fightin’ the good fight”—taking action (though, admittedly, in this particular case, I can’t sanction all the proposed actions expressed in this controversy, some of which you noted well). God forbid our collective calls for examination be tragically linked with ideas of “crying and begging” to be where we weren’t/aren’t wanted, and us being “disgusting and pathetic” in the process. No, no... please, let us clearly separate such concepts of our attempted socio-politcal redresses—past, present and future—the same way we separate apples from oranges, church from state, and the sacred from the profane. I hope you’ll agree our people have earned better than that.
Continued success with your music.
Mac DeFlorimonte
Jazz enthusiast
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SOLAR PLAN
Editors, Daily Planet:
As parents at Washington Elementary School we strongly support the KyotoUSA/Helios solar electric proposal for the roof of Washington. We urge the School Board to move ahead with the project at the June 20 meeting.
KyotoUSA’s proposal is not perfect. The group introduced their proposal to the school board in May 2006 but not to the Washington community until this April. There are many in our community who have dedicated their careers to renewable energy and green building and could have offered much to this process.
Comprehensive district-wide conservation and efficiency measures, while not as photogenic as solar, are critical to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the district. We must not fall into the trap of putting a solar electric system on the roof of one school, patting ourselves on the back, and feeling that we’re “doing our part.” Our part is much larger, for the climate crisis is dire and our solutions must be multi-faceted.
Approving this solar electric system is a positive first step for the district. A reliable and complete energy efficiency audit, reviewed by all stakeholders, must follow immediately, and its findings must be integrated into the sizing and design of the system. The proposal has already sparked energetic discussions at our school about additional ways to reduce greenhouse gas generation, and involve children and families in the process. We are excited about the prospect of undertaking this challenge.
We also urge the district to integrate the lessons of clean, renewable energy into Berkeley’s classrooms, taking advantage of this opportunity to support the city’s Measure G.
KyotoUSA has made clear that, if rejected by the board at this juncture, they will reluctantly approach another district. They have also gone to great lengths to minimize fiduciary risk. That risk is outweighed by the good that can come from the project. This good includes, most importantly, it’s potential to help us empower and inspire a generation of students to do something about the intractable problems of climate change.
Time is running out in our race against human induced climate change. If we say no to this opportunity, when will another one come our way?
Geoffrey Holton
Eli Cochran
Nabih Tahan
Abigail Surasky
Linda Curry
Stuart Fox
