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The Berkeley City Council will meet today (Tuesday) with a busy agenda, including putting tax measures on the ballot, the city’s proposed sunshine ordinance, competing density bonus provisions, its position on spraying to thwart the Light Brown Apple Moth and a proposal to charge for evening street parking downtown. 

Special meeting on tax measures 

The council is scheduled to hold a special meeting to discuss the Ballot Measure Voter Survey Results at 5 p.m. at Council Chambers at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The city manager’s office hired San Francisco-based David Binder Research a couple of weeks ago to conduct a 15-minute telephone survey of 600 Berkeley voters about potential ballot measures for the November elections. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the Planet Monday that the results showed voters did not want large dollar amounts on bond or tax measures. 

“It clearly shows that the lower the dollar threshold is, the better chance the bond or tax measure has of passing,” he said. “The appetite for new taxes is not great. People are more in favor of taxes in the $50 to $75 range.” 

Kamlarz said the council would decide on what ballot measures to put on the ballot at the May 6 council meeting.  

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna told the Planet the results would help council decide what issues took precedence for the ballot. 

“It’s a preliminary survey about the ideas council has expressed,” Caronna said. “The city would like to get the perspective of the citizenry on what issues they might value.” 

The majority of the issues surveyed—including library and recreational improvements, the construction of a warm water pool and storm water upgrades—failed to receive a 66 percent voter approval rate, the amount required for a bond to pass on the ballot. 

“It doesn’t look good for taxes at all from the results,” said Councilmember Dona Spring. 

The split survey used cross tabulation techniques, at times asking two different sets of questions to groups of voters. 

“This was done to get a sense of what voters’ response would be to stand-alone measures, such as the warm water pool, as opposed to a bigger bond on recreation, which includes the warm water pool and other public pool improvements,” Caronna said. 

For instance, voters were split at 41 percent on a $47 million library and recreation seismic facilities omnibus bond measure that would cost $70 per year for an average homeowner for seismic safety and improved access for the disabled at Berkeley libraries, as well as increased recreational opportunities such as rehabilitation of three swimming pools, recreation centers and the skate park, including the construction of a new warm water pool. 

“That’s probably dead already,” Spring said. “The library didn’t like it. It didn’t want to be tied to the pools.” 

Further down the list, a $26 million stand-alone bond measure that would improve Berkeley’s public libraries by improving seismic safety and disabled access received a 58 percent voter approval, with 35 percent opposing it. 

A $23 million stand-alone bond measure to build a warm water pool, which would cost $30 annually for an average homeowner, received a 43 percent approval, with 41 percent saying no to new taxes. 

Sunshine Ordinance 

The council is also scheduled to hold a public hearing on the Berkeley city attorney’s draft sunshine ordinance—designed to provide citizens with greater access to local government—at its regular session. 

A group of citizens who have been working on an alternative draft ordinance requested the City Council Agenda Committee last week to postpone the public hearing and provide them with a 90-day extension to finish the draft. 

Julie Sinai, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Bates, told the Planet Wednesday that although the mayor had not supported the postponement of the public hearing, he had agreed to hold off the first reading of an ordinance until June 10.  

Sinai said that Bates had refused to delay the public hearing since the council had been discussing the ordinance for a number of years.  

The city has been working on a sunshine ordinance since 2001, when at the request of Councilmember Kriss Worthington, the City Council asked Kamlarz and then-City Clerk Sherry Kelly to look into improving the city’s sunshine policies, including the adoption of an ordinance.  

Density bonus 

Two different versions of a proposed municipal density bonus are on the council’s agenda, one recommended by the Planning Commission and the other by the city planning staff. 

The regulations would govern the size and shape of multi-story mixed-use housing projects of the sort now being built along the city’s major traffic arteries. 

The commission is urging the city to pass an ordinance that will take effect before the June 3 general election to offset the possible impacts of Proposition 98. 

That measure, billed as an initiative to bar the use of eminent domain for the benefit of private developers, could—critics contend—seriously limit the ability of state and local governments to control development. 

The measure would also phase out the last vestiges of rent control in the state, generating large contributions from landlords. 

The Planning Commission said their version—based on nearly two years’ work by a panel drawn from three city commissions—would give the city more options than the staff proposal. 

Mayor Tom Bates had successfully urged the agenda committee to keep both proposals off the agenda, but he retracted his position at the urging of Councilmember Linda Maio. Bates now appears as a sponsor, along with Maio and Darryl Moore. 

Whichever—if either—measure is adopted, the ordinance would be automatically repealed should Proposition 98 fail at the ballot box. 

The proposed ordinance originated with concerns from members of the Zoning Adjustments Board, which felt that current city policies allowed them too little control over projects that could have major impacts on adjacent residential neighborhoods. 

The council adopted the staff version once before, when Proposition 90, another eminent domain measure, appeared on the November 2006 ballot. The law died when the proposition was rejected by California voters. 

Another measure now working its way through the state legislature could also render the need for a density bonus ordinance moot. 

Assembly Bill 2280, backed by Berkeley Assemblymember Loni Hancock and the League of California Cities, would exempt cities which already have inclusionary ordinances from the state density bonus law. 

Berkeley has an inclusionary ordinance, which requires developers of buildings with five or more living units to set aside 20 percent of the total for rent or sale to those otherwise unable to afford them—or to pay an “in lieu” fee to the city to fund affordable housing projects. 

Livable Berkeley chair Erin Rhoades has called on members to oppose the Planning Commission version, while other activists, including Merrilee Mitchell, are calling for support. 

Light Brown Apple Moth Resolution 

The council will also vote on whether to pass a resolution to oppose the aerial spraying of the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) on the grounds that exposure to the chemicals sprayed is detrimental to health. 

The council will vote on whether to accept wording changes introduced by Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. 

Councilmember Spring told the Planet that she would introduce a separate motion to ask the City of Berkeley to step up its legal strategy to stop the spraying before August. 

“We should follow Santa Cruz and take this to court,” she said. “We need to be aggressive about it. This will damage the tourist industry in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco. I know I wouldn’t want to be in an area which is sprayed by these chemicals. We can’t afford to have people boycott the Bay Area ... A large part of our revenue comes from tourism.” 

Parking meter extensions 

The council will vote on whether to approve a proposal by Mayor Tom Bates and councilmembers Spring and Laurie Capitelli to offer extended parking times from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. and multiple hours of parking at night to drivers who park at Berkeley’s pay-and-display parking meters. 

The proposal aims to help the city meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 80 percent over the next 42 years. 

The plan would also help to develop the city’s arts scene and launch alternate forms of transportation, city officials said. 

The city’s current parking meters—which accept cash or credit cards—charge drivers from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.  

To view the Ballot Measure Voter Survey Results, see www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=18772. 

Planet staff writer Richard Brenneman contributed to this report.