Opinion

Happy New Year to all the loyal readers, old and new, of the Berkeley Daily Planet. In honor of the holiday season, I’m taking most of the day off and foregoing the usual too-long essay, but we’re slowly posting the always excellent pieces from our volunteer contributors which are coming in—keep checking to see what’s new over the weekend.

Many times since we’ve commenced this endeavor, in many forms over the last 8 or 9 years, some readers have implored us to concentrate on “the good news”. Well, feel-good stories concocted by “public information officers” abound in all kinds of media, but when things go wrong you won’t always hear about it. That’s one reason we keep on trucking.

We have every expectation that much of the next year will prove just about as annoying as this one. I observe in today’s issue, for example, bad behavior on the part of the city of Berkeley, the University of California at Berkeley, some elements of the state of California and of course annoyances galore at the national and international level.

But things go right too—the early Occupy events are an example of news that is both good and consequential. We appreciate the efforts of all of our readers to keep us informed, on good days and bad, of what’s happening in Berkeley and the big world beyond. -more-

there were poems
pasted on painted fish
hanging in the treetops
of the trees now gone
in People's Park
poems which floated
over the night
then the morning
then the plastic netting
then the bulldozers
until they fell
among the leaves
and the branches
and were hauled away
to the woodchipper
-more-

Dear City of Berkeley:

On December 23 I was cited under code 14.40.060B(1) for having the front wheel of my 2010 Toyota Prius more than six inches from the curb. I did not see the ticket until I drove away from 2462 Shattuck, I have no doubt that the car was further than six inches from the curb. I have been a resident of Berkeley since 1969 and have never been aware of this ordinance.

Yesterday I went back to this area of Berkeley, downtown Berkeley, to view cars parked diagonally. I would ask that you do the same so as not to take my word (or pictures) for it. One out of three cars is parked more than six inches from the curb. As to my own situation the front bumper clearance of a 2010 Toyota Prius is 7 inches. Your curbs, depending on the condition of the street, are 6.5 inches high. To approach your curb is to scrape the underside of the bumper. Therefore, to avoid more damage to my car, I stay a distance away.

You can be assured that I won’t be parking on Berkeley City streets in the future. That is a shame because I have always made it a point to purchase goods from small Berkeley retailers and to frequent Berkeley restaurants. They now will lose my business to merchants with private parking, to UC Berkeley, to shopping malls, and to the internet. The City of Berkeley has been frequently criticized for its aggressive enforcement of parking violations. One of the reasons that there are so many empty store fronts in downtown Berkeley is because of the difficulty in parking and over- zealous enforcement of parking regulations. I suggest to the Mayor and City Council through this letter that these regulations be revised if Berkeley is to attract customers to any part of the city. -more-

I left the dark little cave this morning and went through a range of emotion from amazement with the fantastic California weather to amazement that yet again a two legged rat had decided to use my car as its dinner table leaving curried lentils and an imprint of its ass behind to amazement that the western end of "People's Park" had been cordoned off and in the process of being cleaned and purged. Hallelujah! There is a GAWD and its name is not Bates or Worthington! -more-