The Opinion Pages

Long ago my mother-in-law had a handyman who called himself, in those pre-PC days, a hillbilly. He was a snaggle-toothed fellow who chewed tobacco and was not shy about telling you he’d done time “Inside.” We knew him only as Chester. -more-

As our Internet experiment ("daily online, weekly in print") moves forward, we’ve encountered a certain amount of guilt-tripping from our friends and neighbors for “deserting” them on Tuesdays. Everyone seems to like getting their weekend paper earlier, on Thursdays, but they whine that they’ve been accustomed to having another little news fix earlier in the week, and they hate to give it up. Friends, there’s new stuff posted on this web site almost every single day: news, opinions both letters and commentary, columnists, you name it, something new every time you turn around. . . Today, check out the surprise announcement of the Mayor's State of the City Address, something we didn't know about when we put the print paper to bed last week. -more-

Rapid Bus Plus is a draft alternative to AC Transit's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal. Our goal is to get the most environmental and economic benefits from each scarce transit dollar invested, while making no one worse off. To win new transit riders, we would enhance the best features of BRT, while expanding their benefits beyond the BART/Telegraph corridor (where buses already work well and commuters also have the BART alternative). -more-

In his 11-plus years on City Council, Kriss Worthington has been such an effective leader on so many issues that it would be easy to come up with a list of well over a hundred reasons he’s earned my support in his bid for a state Assembly seat. Here are just 10 of them: -more-

On May 13, 1968, students, workers, and activists marched through the streets of Paris to challenge the nation’s social, economic, and political structures. The marches were a prelude to what became a two-week general strike, the impact of which remains hotly debated to this day. The events of May 1968 were not the world’s first mass protests, but their role in the subsequent alteration of French society was widely hailed as proving the power of political action outside the electoral process. The United States also saw mass protests in 1968, but their failure to end the Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon that November left many activists frustrated. The successful WTO protests in Seattle reasserted the power of mass protest, but this appears to have dissipated as the Bush Administration invaded Iraq despite millions taking to the streets and the federal government failed to legalize undocumented immigrants despite the mass protests of the Spring of 2006. Can mass protest still make a difference in the United States, or is the electoral process—embodied in the mass involvement of those in the Obama campaign—now seen as the leading if not exclusive route to progressive change? -more-

Proposition 98 in the June 3 ballot is good for tenants. It phases out rent controls on a unit only when that unit becomes voluntarily vacant. Via Prop. 98, the local rent law is folded into the state constitution and the current tenant is protected from any changes in the law. Changes do happen: the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, undermined rent control in Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and other California cities. Many people say that if 98 passes then there will be mass evictions. This same claim was made prior to the passage of vacancy decontrol (Costa-Hawkins) in the mid ’90s, but the evictions never materialized. It is nearly impossible to evict a tenant and Prop. 98 does not change that fact. -more-

Could the tragedy of Christopher Wootton’s death have been avoided if we had been more proactive with prevention and enforcement efforts in our community? Sadly, we think it’s possible that might be the case. We are a group of neighbors who have volunteered our time for over two years on the Chancellor’s Task Force on Student/Neighbor Relations working on issues of alcohol-related behavior in the Southside. -more-

The Berkeley High Warm Pool is under siege from many fronts. Although the gym is registered on the state and federal registries of historic landmarks, the Berkeley Unified School District is still slated to tear down the pool. Swimmers have been working with the City of Berkeley for nearly a decade, but we have been told that there are no funds to build a new pool. -more-

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by -more-

The state Density Bonus Law is having a major impact on the face of development in Berkeley. It has resulted in buildings which are substantially larger then those allowed by the Berkeley Zoning Code and which are impacting the neighborhoods along our transit corridors in ways that were not anticipated. While both the neighborhoods and our newspapers like to label the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) and City Council as pro-development and the development community sees both as anti-development, this misses the point. It is the state law that has created these larger buildings. The law is a poorly written document riddled with ambiguities which in itself contributes to the angry debate which is the mode for all Density Bonus project hearings. The approval process on these buildings is all but dysfunctional and we need to address the issue so that ZAB and the City Council can regain control over the development of our city. -more-

Thursday, May 15 is National Bike to Work Day and, across the country, we can witness the spectacle of mayors and governors, CEOs and celebrities, donning brand new helmets and pedaling off toward a green horizon. Tomorrow, they’ll be back to driving so that, by year’s end, they’ll have traveled more than 13,000 miles by car. -more-

An April 25 commentary in the Daily Planet (“No Compromise On Apple Moth Pesticide”) misrepresented our organization’s position. We’d like to clarify our mission and the position of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) regarding the light brown apple moth (LBAM). -more-

The June 2008 Ballot has a dangerous measure known as Proposition 98 (California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, or CPOFPA). If passed by the voters, Prop. 98 would terminate rent control, tenant protections, and would place homeowners at risk by allowing unscrupulous property owners to challenge existing building codes and zoning laws that may prohibit the placing of a “pig sty” next to someone’s home, or a “porn shop” next to a church or school. -more-