Public Comment

My interest was piqued by the editor’s quotation from Carole Norris in a recent editorial about Nancy Skinner: “Nancy ... worked with Berkeley ZAB members to organize support and approvals for a number of infill projects facing opposition including the Berkeley Bowl, several condo projects and the proposed mixed use project that includes Trader Joe’s.” My question is where was Nancy Skinner’s ‘work’ done? 

As one of the many neighbors who worked within Berkeley’s public process for citizen involvement, I find the above statement, if true, extremely disturbing. I searched the transcripts from all of the Zoning Adjustments Board public hearings on Hudson McDonald’s Trader Joe’s project and found no sign of Ms. Skinner’s name in public comment, letter, or ex parte disclosures from ZAB members. On the other hand, hundreds of Berkeley citizens on both sides of the issue engaged in a vigorous and public debate on the merits of the project and the probity of the process. Citizen involvement included energetic public comments and letters to the ZAB, an administrative appeal to the City Council, and perhaps inevitably with a project and process so controversial, a lawsuit. We followed the rules in an effort to stop the city from perverting our General Plan goals, the University Avenue Strategic Plan, our Zoning Ordinance, and state laws that encourage affordable housing and ensure protection for affected neighborhoods from detriment. It is distressing to find that Ms. Skinner now claims to have ‘worked’ the ZAB. 

This type of ‘below the radar’ intervention in our political process makes me fear that Ms. Skinner will continue Berkeley’s recent pattern of backroom dealing outside of the cleansing light of public dialogue and disclosure. The subversion of our political process by our rich and powerful developers has become endemic under the reign of Mayor Bates and Assemblymember Hancock. Ms. Norris’s trolling for $3,600 contributions from developers in exchange for a reliable “bought” vote in the Assembly is nothing less than shameful.  

I note that one of our other Berkeley candidates for Assembly, Kriss Worthington, has made passing a Berkeley sunshine ordinance one of his priorities, and has consistently supported construction of affordable housing and insisted on a scrupulous respect for the rule of law in our city government. In the June Democratic primary we have the opportunity to break the chain of corruption we have suffered under for years once and for all. I urge Berkeley citizens to cast their vote for Councilmember Kriss Worthington for Assembly.  

For the State Senate seat being vacated (under duress) by Don Perata, I urge voters to look at the list of actual accomplishments of Wilma Chan versus the PR puffery of Assemblymember and ex-Mayor Loni Hancock. Consider sending Assembly member Hancock into retirement to spend her gold-plated state- and city-funded retirement income in foreign travel with her family. 

Stephen Wollmer is member of Neighbors for a Livable Berkeley Way. NLBW’s lawsuit against the city to void the permits granted for the Trader Joe’s project will be heard before Judge Roesch in Department 31 of Superior Court at 9 a.m. March 21. For more information on our case or to contribute to our legal defense fund, contact stephenwollmer@gmail.com.