Public Comment

Dear Becky (publisher of the best [online] local paper in the United States [in my opinion],

Sometimes I think you can be a little wrong-headed. While I concur with your negative take on measure R, it is not R as in Robert Reich. 

In this world [sic: sad plutocracy] he - the former Secretary of Labor turned Berkeley professor—is a pretty decent progressive and I'm glad Obama has put someone with comparable views in that position. I would hesitate to dismiss him as a stooge of developers (the meaning of your words, not the exact words) or a "snowbunny". (Really, if you go back far enough wasn't the whole idea of Berkeley, Pasadena, etc. rather "snowbunny".) 

Why don't you interview him and find out why he supported measure R? 

You made another point, that all of the planning commissioners are in "the building industry"—well hello —some of them are architects and planners. I happen to be an architect strongly opposed to measure R. Would you lump me in with the others if I were to volunteer and be assigned to the planning commission? Really, everything we want to preserve around the BART station downtown was designed and constructed by people in the building industry. 

Why don't you cut straight to the point, rather than inventing other demons? 

Sam Zell —who did in the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune and god only knows what he might have done to Chicago real estate before buying into downtown Berkeley— should be our target. 

The construction of any building above 8 to 12 stories downtown, should be our clear target (the grandiose green dreams of our planners cum developer's representatives (Isn't that what became of Dan Marks?). 

And these planners themselves — who so easily use and then betray their public trusts and fancy City salaries — should be our targets. 

You might, in your discussion, speculate about why the mayor and some of the council's planning commission appointees have no qualms about turning downtown into a canyon or casting a long afternoon shadow on the Berkeley campus —while at the same time show no interest at all in developing the parking lot at the north Berkeley BART station. They claim they need the great heights because they can't find building sites. Are they really looking? 

Finally, why did BAHA (Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association) or whoever orchestrated the no on R campaign, design a lawn poster that looked like "no on P"? I only realized after walking up close to one two days before the elections that the P was an "R" that had been "greened", as the measures opponents claimed - a graphic too hard to see from a distance and too hard to get for someone not immersed in the (via other media) critique by the opponents that measure R is fake green. 

Keep up the excellent work. Oh —and by the way— the creeps who slimed the Berkeley Daily Planet paper edition don't speak for this Jew.