Public Comment

CELL PHONE ANTENNAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

People sometimes say that our mayor has below-normal intelligence. This seems to be corroborated by his willingness—indeed, eagerness—to let his developer friends, along with several cell-phone companies, put up a thicket of cell-phone towers on the old Bekins building in South Berkeley, only a few blocks from the mayor’s own house!  

A number of respected scientific studies have shown that people living near such towers experience significantly increased cancer rates, so it would appear that the mayor is perfectly willing to risk his own life, and that of his wife, not to mention the lives of his neighbors, just to keep the developers and the corporations happy. That, to me, is definitely a sign of below-normal—in fact, dangerously below-normal—intelligence. 

Peter Schorer 

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PEDESTRIANS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Was Bernie Lenhoff trying to be serious with his absurd letter (“Pedestrian Safety,” Jan. 15) blaming pedestrians for disturbing his auto utopia and implying we pedestrians deserve our injuries and fatalities? Driving a car is a privilege, not a right, and motorists have a responsibility to be alert, to obey laws and to look for and yield to pedestrians. Buried in the same issue’s commentary page (“Traffic Calming,” by Michael Jerrett), is the all too frequent fact that “Drivers on many occasions have challenged my family and others in the cross walk by speeding directly at us and not slowing down until we back away.” 

Since drivers seem to be granted a 10-15 mph buffer over the posted speed limits before tickets are issued, Berkeley should lower its posted speed limits by this margin so drivers will really limit themselves to a 20-25 mph cap in residential areas. Instead of motorists viewing pedestrians as worthless, crushable insects who are slowing down one’s all-too important journey, the driving paradigm needs to recognize that most everyone’s loved ones occasionally walk, and that every time a driver sets a bad example, the people who “learn” from that example might influence others, mispaying it back to the motorist and the motorist’s own loved ones. 

Motorists need to create a safe environment for pedestrians and bicyclists, recognizing that it is in the motorists own best interest to encourage others to walk, to bicycle, and to leave more vacant parking spaces. 

Sadly, people are in a hurry, and the incentive to shave a few seconds off one’s journey has insufficient consequences. The city should install automated speed cameras in key locations to change the rush-rush driving paradigm! The cameras pay for themselves either by well-deserved citations or by priceless lives saved. 

Mitch Cohen 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please tell me that Bernie Lenhoff’s Jan. 15 letter is a satire. He’s trying to be funny, right? 

I walk to work and back along Telegraph Avenue every day. Whenever or wherever I walk, I go out of my way to cross at traffic lights, braving ridicule from family and friends for being so overly timid. Despite crossing on green lights, where the state of California says I have the right of way, I experience near-misses with cars every week, most particularly at the intersection of Webster and Telegraph, just behind Whole Foods. I don’t step in front of speeding cars. I wait for a clear crosswalk, and then venture out. Inevitably, about mid-point in the crossing, some one-handed left or right turner barrels into the intersection, cell phone in the other hand (is that a law? no turns without using a cell phone?), on his or her mission to buy prebiotics and carbon offsets. I stop walking. Best case, the car stops, I cross, no problem. Less good case, car slows down and keeps moving, making me either stop or keep apace—pretty intimidating. What if I trip on a pothole and fall down? Worst case, the car definitely doesn’t seem to be slowing or stopping. I usually stand still, the car speeds by, or screeches to a stop, the driver glares at me. I glare back. Sometimes I yell things. I fantasize about pulling the drivers out of their cars and pummeling them with their iPhones. (Actually, I fantasize something much more satisfying, but probably even the nut who wants to put laser sensors up their emissions would object.) 

Aija Kanbergs 

Oakland 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Much Jan. 15 commentary focused on parking, traffic, and pedestrian fatality. Both Roy Nakadegawa and Michael Jerrett cite other cities around the world where these problems are addressed by increased taxation of automobile use through special access and parking fees and added fuel taxes. This seems an obvious first step, but the next question is how to apply that funding to real solutions. 

Nakadegawa opts for a transit solution, arguing for BRT and dismissing local shuttles to BART. I think that small frequent shuttles offer the better solution. One might argue that they’re costly due to a small rider to driver ratio, but look at all those nearly empty AC buses - and that’s one use for the added revenue. Above all, we need a regional transit authority with real power to override the turf wars and impose synchronized schedules and fee exchanges among AC, BART and Muni. 

Jerrett argues for traffic calming and offers encouraging research on its effectiveness. I’m skeptical, and suspect that the research may be skewed. He cites a paper “showing that in areas of Oakland with speed humps, traffic injuries to children requiring hospitalization were cut it half compared to other areas without the humps". Yeah, because traffic from the hump areas has all moved to the non-hump areas. This is a zero-sum game. Create obstacles in one area and all the traffic moves to another area - it doesn’t just disappear. And I submit that speed humps and traffic circles are not “traffic calming” but traffic enraging. Moving traffic out of residential streets is desirable, but it necessarily channels frustrated and impatient drivers onto our bumper-to-bumper main thoroughfares.  

What to do? In his Jan. 4 comments on the tragic pedestrian death on Marin, Laurie Capitelli says “All parties were obeying the traffic signals". That says it all! Simple stoplights don’t protect pedestrians. The implementation of traffic signals in Berkeley lags decades behind that in Albany, El Cerrito and Emeryville. On our overcrowded main arteries, every pedestrian crossing needs left turn arrows and timed pedestrian walk signals. Meanwhile, Bernie Lenhoff’s Jan. 15 letter should be required reading for every pedestrian in Berkeley. And a personal note to Dr. Jerrett: If those were my kids, and unless they’re somehow disabled or terminally lazy, I’d damn sure tell them to walk a couple extra blocks and cross Shattuck at Cedar, where there is a traffic light.  

Jerry Landis 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Though I find Bernie Lenhoff’s contention that “the greatest danger to pedestrians in Berkeley are the pedestrians themselves” extreme (Jan. 15), there is some truth to what he says. I am astonished to watch (usually young) people ambling nonchalantly against red lights and then flip the bird or scream at rattled drivers forced to brake violently to avoid killing them. I have also had several near collisions with pedestrians wearing dark clothing at night who are almost impossible to see until one is upon them. On the other hand, I recently noticed that about a third of the drivers barreling down Hearst Street had only one hand on the steering wheel while they talked animatedly on their cell phones. 

I wish that European-style public transit made cars unnecessary in Berkeley, but until that happy day that will never come, pedestrians and drivers must share some responsibility for our increasingly deadly streets. 

Gray Brechin 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Measures A and B 

Until Children’s Hospital Oakland, a private hospital, asked the public to pay for a $300 million bond measure—40 per cent of the construction costs of a brand-new, state-of-the-art facility—the salaries of the top CHO executives weren’t really an issue to me. But since they are asking, in the interest of transparency and accountability, voters might be interested to know (according to CHO’s 2006 IRS 990 forms) what salaries CHO pays to those at the top: 

• CEO Frank Tiedemann made more than $673,000 in cash and employee benefit plan contributions that year. 

• Senior vice president Mary Dean made more than $317,000 in 2006 after getting a 15 per cent raise. 

• Chief operating officer and chief financial officer Doug Myers made $420,000. 

• Senior vice president of research Bert Lubin made $362,000. 

• Chief administrative officer Pamela Friedman made nearly $230,000. 

These are only some of CHO’s senior vice presidents. 

By comparison, the CEO of the public Alameda County Medical Center, which includes Highland General, John George, Fairmont and three outpatient clinics, made $351,000. 

CHO might do a little belt-tightening of their own executives’ salaries before coming to the public for a handout. 

Please vote No on A and B. 

Robert Brokl 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

The good news: Susan Parker’s back, funny and feisty as ever! Keep ‘em coming! 

The bad news: Now we have Ron Lowe (not even in the Bay Area, no less) not once but twice in recent issues. How about giving someone else a chance? 

On a more significant note: Children’s Hospital, caught in the act of sideswiping the public, has now been public relations savvy enough to back off from Measure B. Don’t be fooled: Measure A, its replacement, would still deal a blow to the county. Not that I’m against helping sick kids—who is?—but let’s not forget that Children’s Hospital is a private venture and we must direct our ever-more-meager resources to public institutions such as Highland, the place of last resort for low-income Alameda County residents—especially now with terrifying budget cuts being proposed by the governor. Children’s can seek big bucks from foundations and some of those super-rich I.T. and Hollywood folks our state has spawned; schools and other county services can’t. 

Rhoda Slanger