Opinion

At a concert on Sunday night we encountered a friend in the seat behind us who has been active on multiple city commissions for many years. I asked him if I’d missed anything, since I’d been in Pasadena over the weekend. He said he didn’t know, because he’d been out of town too. I asked if it was a vacation. “It was outside of Berkeley,” he said. “That’s all it takes to make it a vacation.” But at intermission time I spotted him chatting with another commissioner, and threatened jokingly to bust them for a violation of the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. -more-

CORRECTION -more-

A far-reaching attack on the zoning protections of West Berkeley is being contrived by a small group of developers and real estate brokers. It is coming at us disguised as a either a new West Berkeley Business Improvement District (BID) or a Community Benefits District (CBD), which the organizers would control and use to lobby for zoning changes to gentrify the industrial areas. This lobbying would be financed by taxes collected from the many West Berkeley businesses and residents opposed to their goals. That’s the cleverest part of their plan: it makes the potential victims pay for it. And they’ve already gotten $10,000 from the city to organize it. The group behind it calls themselves the West Berkeley Business Alliance (WBBA), but their organization does not in any way represent industries, artisans and artists, which make up the majority of businesses in that area. -more-

I couldn’t help being shaken by the “accidental death” of Carol Ann Gotbaum, in a holding cell at a Phoenix airport. From what I can gather, she acted in an erratic and irate manner, a similar manner to a mentally ill person in crisis. It brought back memories of friends and acquaintances who are mentally ill and who died either while being restrained or in some other way because of the illness. -more-

On Monday, a cardboard sign in the window of the Halal Market on San Pablo at University announced that it was closing. -more-

MISQUOTED ON -more-

The Berkeley Daily Planet published a political cartoon last week which showed a half-dozen snarling dogs surrounding a hunk of meat. The dogs were labeled as Berkeley property owners and the meat “Kavanagh.” There may indeed be a few local property owners who take some small degree of pleasure in the predicament in which Mr. Kavanagh finds himself. These would most likely include those who have been forced to sit and listen to his smug, self-righteous pontificating at rent board hearings where he has positioned himself on the moral high ground and has routinely treated landlords like lying crooks simply because they operate rental property in Berkeley. Now it appears the criminal justice system is telling Mr. Kavanagh to take a look in the mirror if he wants to know who the lying crook really is. -more-

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At the risk of sounding banal in the extreme, the existence of independent media and its continued survival is critical. Independent media is invaluable. Particularly in today’s climate of media consolidation it is crucial that institutions such as the Planet are able to continue to thrive and survive. Berkeley is home to the free speech movement. Just as the Planet is a veritable institution in Berkeley, so is KPFA radio. Both have staff that render their services as labors of love whether paid staff at the Planet or unpaid staff at KPFA radio. The dedication and work of the staff at each of these institutions dovetail. For example on Mon. Oct. 1 KPFA interviewed Planet reporter J. Douglas Allen-Taylor on the current state of the city of Oakland and Mayor Ron Dellums. Planet editor Becky O’Malley has engaged in written exchanges with KPFA Sunday host Peter Laufer and has appeared on his show. The Planet covered the 1999 infamous KPFA lock out extensively. -more-