Public Comment
Letters to the Editor
THE MAYOR’S
SUNSET ORDINANCE
Editors, Daily Planet:
I was present at the March 17 Agenda Committee meeting when Mayor Bates brought up his “Sunshine Ordinance” by calling it a “Sunset Ordinance.” He did not catch his error until the numerous chuckles gave him pause.
My reaction at the time was that it was a perfect Freudian slip, and nothing has occurred since to change my mind. The mayor’s ordinance would do a good job of keeping us right where he wants us—totally in the dark.
Gale Garcia
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LOW-INCOME HOUSING
Editors, Daily Planet:
The Berkeley City Council has over $4 million to go to low-income housing but we must request what we want and people must speak and e-mail.
Berkeley allows landlords to shamelessly overcharge Section 8 rents (way over HUD’s fair market rents). Above this fair rent, HUD will not pay, so Berkeley charges about $100 extra per month to the very people who have no way of paying it: the disabled (including veterans), the elderly and the very poor. According to Berkeley’s housing ordinances and state and federal law, this is against the law, and the overcharges are Berkeley’s responsibility. People can no longer move, as there are very few Section 8 places left anywhere. Because of fee waivers granted for two-bedroom and above, it is the Section 8 tenants in studios and one bedrooms who are at risk of homelessness now, but it could change back at any time. Come to the meeting, ask City Manager Phil Kamlarz and the City Council for equal treatment under the law, including disability law, and give them a chance to staunch the flow of homelessness on to Berkeley’s streets. If you’re not at the meeting, you know the developers and property owners will be. The Berkeley City Council is asking people to come to the April 22 meeting at 7 p.m. at Council Chambers, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way and send e-mails to kslee@ci.berkeley.ca.us and tstroshane@ci.berkeley.ca.us. You are also asked to call 981-5422 with any ideas or comments.
P. Smith
Berkeley Citizens for Fair Housing
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CLINTON’S TITANIC FAILURE
Editors, Daily Planet:
In retrospect, Hillary Clinton’s campaign probably hit its iceberg when it started spreading the vicious innuendo that Barack Obama, as a black candidate, was unelectable. Race is, after all, the quintessential American issue that is still 10 percent visible and 90 percent below the surface. Now, Clinton’s problem is more clinical: She has a hearing problem. In her head, she still hears the band striking up “Hail to the Chief”—but the sounds really are just her loyal musicians playing on deck as the ship sinks, realizing the futility of the situation but knowing that it would be pointless to tell the captain. In fierce denial, she seems determined to go down with the ship. One question remains: Is the Democratic Party one of the passengers on it?
Doug Buckwald
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STIMULUS PACKAGE
Editors, Daily Planet:
Are you wondering what you’re going to do with that generous “stimulus package” check from the government?
Why not use it to create a “Moral Stimulus Package” by donating to the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is one of the most vigorous defenders of human rights in the United States? They are actively working to bring back habeas corpus and to press for criminal prosecutions of Bush administration officials. And not only the ones they have already admitted to on national television.
Don’t you think a return to the rule of law and the protection of human rights will look much better on America than a new pair of shoes or a flat screen TV?
If you can afford to turn your “stimulus package” check into a “Moral Stimulus Package” for humanity, then please consider donating to the Center for Constitutional Rights.
For more information on the Center for Constitutional Rights visit www.ccrjustice.org.
Bryan Bowman
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BAD BICYCLE BABY BUGGIES
Editors, Daily Planet:
As a native Berkeleyan, I am alarmed at the number of parents riding bicycles on the public roads, towing their small children behind them in little nylon trailers. These little trailers are about wheel-high, maybe three feet off the ground. They come in one- and two-child carrying sizes.
I often see them on Ashby Avenue or Gilman or on the designated bicycle boulevards.
Parents must be aware there is danger since I often see children in little bicycle helmets or orange flags attached to the tops of the trailers themselves. I think these protective measures are woefully inadequate. I believe that these bicycle baby trailers are a tragic accident just waiting to happen. A car taking a corner too fast or simply misjudging the distance could easily kill the children contained in the baby trailer.
I don’t understand why it is illegal to drive with your toddler in the car absent car seat but it is legal to put your kid in a tiny little tent on wheels and trundle off down the road on a bike dragging them behind.
The Berkeley City Council should pass a law to protect these children by ruling that these types of bicycle trailers are only appropriate for park and trail like settings. They should be barred from the public roads.
Amanda Duisman
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BUS RAPID TRANSIT
Editors, Daily Planet:
A recent opinion piece claims that today’s Bus Rapid Transit opponents are like the Berkeley activists of a half century ago who wanted BART to be underground rather than elevated, so it would have less impact on Berkeley.
But there is an obvious difference. Elevated or underground, BART would be separated from traffic and would provide the same level of service to riders. But without bus-only lanes, BRT would get stuck in traffic and would provide worse service to riders.
For a real analogy to today’s BRT opponents, imagine that there were Berkeley activists a half century ago who wanted BART to run on surface streets in lanes that trains shared with other traffic, so BART trains would be delayed whenever traffic was congested. Under this absurd scenario, the unreliability of BART service in Berkeley would jam up the entire BART system. Likewise, without exclusive bus lanes in Berkeley, unreliability of service would jam up the entire BRT system.
BRT opponents claim that their RapidBus Plus proposal would give most advantages of BRT at less cost. If that is true, then why is BRT with exclusive bus lanes being used or proposed in 25 cities across the United States? Why did New York’s plan for congestion pricing rely on BRT with exclusive bus lanes as its main means of extending transit service? The answer is obvious: because transportation planners around the country know that buses with exclusive lanes gives faster, more reliable service than buses that are stuck in traffic.
If BRT opponents really know better, if they really have evidence that RapidBus Plus is as good as BRT, they should not confine their efforts to Berkeley. They should publish their findings in professional journals that have wide circulation, so they can enlighten the world’s transportation planners by sharing their superior knowledge.
Charles Siegel
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DEDICATED-LANE BRT IS
CURRENT CITY POLICY
Editors, Daily Planet:
While some impassioned southside neighborhood activists continue to spread their worst fears about Bus Rapid Transit on Telegraph, it’s worth noting that the city already has an official opinion on the issue. On July 10, 2001, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution setting forth the city’s position on how AC Transit should orient its “major investment study” for improving bus service to downtown. That resolution, still in force today, noted that Berkeley has a “Transit-first policy that supports the use of exclusive transit lanes,” and affirmed that the “preferred alignment will be Telegraph Avenue and the preferred mode will be bus rapid transit.”
Voting for this initiative were current councilmembers Maio, Olds and Worthington—along with then-mayor Shirley Dean, now a leader of the opposition. (I’m sure Ms. Dean has a perfectly good explanation as to why she voted for BRT before she was against it.)
This resolution shows the context in which the current “controversy” (the Planet’s favorite headline word) should be placed—it’s a tempest in a teapot. Whenever the project is looked at in its full scope there is widespread support for BRT—including recent recommendations in three new city plan documents (the Climate Action Plan, the Downtown Area Plan and the Southside Plan).
Once more facts-based information comes out in months to come, support for BRT will continue to grow. Bus Rapid Transit is good for Berkeley, good for the environment, and even good for the southside.
Alan Tobey
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BRT OR DEDICATED
LANE CORRIDOR
Editors, Daily Planet:
I think this is another horrible idea for getting people out of their cars. (And this is again coming from someone who is dedicated to not using his car; the same cyclist who in 2003 panned the idea of adding bicycle lanes on Telegraph Avenue in downtown Oakland because of the congestion and safety issues.)
I am all for getting people out of their cars. But I would not promote the use of AC Transit’s buses until they become much freer of the personal safety/harassment issues than is currently the case. Do not go about “putting the cart in front of the horse”!
Michael Sachs
Oakland
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ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Editors, Daily Planet:
John Gertz’s April 15 letter is an explicit endorsement of war crimes against the captive people of Gaza. The claim that Israel is no longer occupying Gaza and has no responsibility for the Gazans welfare is bogus. Although Israel redeployed its illegal colonial settlers from Gaza to the West Bank, it continued to control and enforce a land, sea and air blockade. Even the border with Egypt is under Israeli control and Egypt is treaty bound not to interfere. I know, I was a member of an American delegation to observe the Palestinian elections in January 2006 and our delegation was stranded on the Egyptian-Gaza Rafah crossing for 24 hours waiting for Israeli approval. Former President Carter who is now visiting Israel-Palestine stated this week that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is a “crime and atrocity” and noted that Gazans were being “starved to death.”
Israel atrocities and systematic abuse and liquidation of Palestinians led Professor Richard Falk (professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton University) to, I am sure painfully for an American Jew, describe the abuse as a Palestinian holocaust. Falk also writes that compared to Darfur “Gaza is morally far worse.”
Shifting the blame to Hamas is also fraudulent. As documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pape, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine started in 1947 and continues to this day. That is, it started 40 years before the 1987 founding of Hamas. One of many examples is the massacre of Deir Yassin when European Jewish gangs (later incorporated into the Israeli army) massacred between 107 and 120 native villagers. That massacre took place on April 9, 1948, not only long before Hamas was founded but also weeks before the initiation of hostilities with neighboring Arab States. Readers should note that Deir Yassin village is located in West Jerusalem far from the area intended for the Jewish state by the UN partition plan. This exposes another frequent lie that Israelis only attack in self defense.
Everyone knows Hamas is not in control of the West Bank and that no rockets are fired from this occupied territory. Yet, just as in Gaza, a reign of terror is inflicted by the Israeli army on West Bank Palestinians daily and is documented in the UK newspaper The Independent.
That American media is silent on Israeli atrocities and that, like John Gertz, many American Zionists (Jews as well as Christians) feel duty bound to justify and even cheer Israeli crimes is shameful.
Hassan Fouda
Kensington
(The author serves on the Board of Directors of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHDUSA.org). Opinions expressed here are his own.)
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THE REAL NEWS
ABOUT PEOPLE’S PARK
Editors, Daily Planet:
If you ask people what’s happening in People’s Park lately, they might tell you about the mass resignation of the pave-the-park faction of the advisory board, or the uppity consultant group that refused to submit a clear, permanent redesign proposal, or the refusal of the university to support a public design contest for a newly configured park.
The probability of anyone mentioning the SLAPP-suit would be low.
Only a few people remember that the University of California attached a $100,000 price tag to the free speech of a few People’s Park advocates in 1992, hoping to silence the entire community. The silence about the SLAPP-suit sixteen years later is strong evidence that Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation are very effective.
Imagine waking up to a voice machine message from a UC lawyer letting you know you were expected in Superior Court the following day to answer charges that you were the nexus of a violent conspiracy with people whose names you’d never heard before.
Imagine scrambling down to the courtroom to find out you’d been accused of creating cardboard stage props and carrying roses, and that the sixth largest nuclear weapons manufacturer in the world was arguing that you therefore constituted a public danger, for which they needed a temporary restraining order, followed by a permanent injunction.
Imagine that the injunction including digging in People’s Park, an activity you had enjoyed since the park’s creation as a part of years of working in the community garden.
It should be obvious that none of the 50 Jane and John Does included in the still current injunction could possibly feel free to attend public meetings and express opinions about the park, since those very activities were the charges against them in the SLAPP-suit. Those who still do are risking another $100,000 gauntlet through Superior Court, another five years of their lives.
People’s Park may need a few repairs, some weeding, and better drainage during the rains. But the most important repair is the one they won’t let anyone discuss; dropping the SLAPP-suit so that all of us can share equally in any discussion about the park’s future.
Carol Denney
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THE OIL MEN
Editors, Daily Planet:
Was gas $4 a gallon when oil men Bush and Cheney took office seven years ago? Did you vote for Bush twice? Are you happy with the return? Sky-high gas, food, and housing prices. Was it costing $50, $70, $100 to fill up when Oil Ministers Bush and Cheney arrived on the scene? Did anyone think to ask the president and VP, wedded to the oil industries as they are, what might be the results of their energy policy seven years down the road? Have you heard either of these Republicans explain away the excessive and obscene profits Corporate Oil continues to make?
The one bright spot might be that the environment and nature are taking a breather as gas prices continue to rise and people drive less and less.
Ron Lowe
Grass Valley
