Opinion

The long knives are starting to come out for West Berkeley, now that Downtown has been carved up. Two harbingers this week: There was a special meeting on Monday of the Zoning Adjustment board which gave the new West Berkeley Bowl carte blanche to open even though the conditions on its use permit which called for changes to mitigate the project’s dire impacts on traffic have never been carried out. And there was another special meeting on Tuesday, so special that some engaged neighborhood stakeholders didn’t even hear about it until the last minute, a “workshop” for the City Council wearing both of its hats (Redevelopment is the other one) to discuss speeding up proposed zoning and traffic changes to the area covered by the West Berkeley Plan. -more-

UN CONFERENCE ON RACISM -more-

I thought the rage I felt so often during the Bush administration would fade away. It actually quieted a little but got aroused to a fever pitch when memos from years ago authorizing torture were made public and started a whirlwind of furious reactions. Evidently, not everyone agrees that human beings inflicting excruciating pain on a bound and helpless human being is torture and that all torture, no matter the purpose, is a crime. -more-

According to the April 23-29 Planet, Patrick Kennedy recently told the Planning Commission that “downtown is on life support” and only new housing construction will save it. I once agreed with Kennedy’s assessment—but that was before the new buildings that he and other developers constructed in the past decade failed to improve the Berkeley downtown business climate. -more-

On Tuesday, May 5th, the City Council will consider two appeals of the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) approval of the Ashby Arts project, appeals that go to the heart of the City’s procedures for projects along San Pablo Avenue. -more-

Congratulations to Berkeley Unified School District for the award of federal stimulus funds serving low income and special needs students (Daily Planet, April 9). As the former student school board member when I was a high school senior and a BUSD parent, I urge Superitendent Huyett and the School Board to spend this money to set up systems that will reduce costs or increase revenue in the future. For example: -more-

When I encountered Planning Director Dan Marks at a workshop in December, he told me that “only two or three” neighbors opposed the Ashby Arts project. That’s when I realized that the process was rigged against them and that staff and the developers were in deep cahoots. -more-

Len Conly correctly points out in his letter to the editor (April 16) that car use in Berkeley has steadily increased for the last three decades, even without the population increasing. Now that Berkeley is embarking on a building boom that will greatly increase the population and contribute to gentrification, it seems wise to assume that the trend of more cars will continue. The Berkeley -more-

When the next big quake hits the East Bay, the only backup local first-responders can count on are nearby volunteers. -more-

“When Secretary Alfonso Jackson in the Bush administration proposed ending Section 8 assistance to lower-income people in need of help to rent decent apartments, I objected that this would leave people with no affordable housing after five years. When I asked him directly what he planned to do for those who would find themselves in this situation if his five-year cap on Section 8 eligibility were to go through, his reply was that we would help these recipients become homeowners.” -more-