Public Comment

What do Stewart Jones, Jesse Arreguin, and Kriss Worthington have in common? Their campaign signs were defaced by “NIMBY Robot”. Guess what else they have in common? They opposed Measure R!  

It appears that Measure R sponsors, with all their endorsements and colorful full page mailers, paid for by Sam Zell, Lakireddy Bali Reddy, William Falik, and Gordon Wozniak, weren’t confident about “winning” and had to resort to stealing and defacing signs of candidates who opposed the measure. Who printed the NIMBY Robot stickers? And who paid for the job? I sure hope those people who went around Berkeley in the middle of the night climbing posts got paid well, because they did a great job defacing EVERY single sign of Councilmembers Arreguin and Worthington overnight, both in and outside of their districts. When did democracy in Berkeley become silencing people who disagree with the Mayor and the rich. 

Should we ask Mayor Tom Bates to make stealing/defacing campaign signs illegal, as he did with stealing free newspapers, after being charged with theft for stealing 1000 copies of the Daily Cal in November 2002? 

Now that Measure R has passed, let’s all get involved to make sure that it does NOT become “a gift to corporate interests from a largely weak city council that disregards public input and lacks an understanding of Berkeley’s potential and the energy to create a downtown that is truly vibrant and a model for the future”, as Stewart Jones stated in his candidate response to questions posed by Berkeleyside. I have seen firsthand how the majority of the Councilmembers—without interest in/intelligence to understand the issue, or the integrity/guts to go against money and power—simply carry out the mayor’s will when making decisions for Berkeley. We, the citizens, need to tell Sam Zell, Tom Bates, and his Robots: Not In My Berkeley, You thugs!