Public Comment

On March 17th the Berkeley City Council will consider expanding the authority and practice of police, especially in downtown Berkeley. The council will consider authorizing the police to treat the down and out even more harshly than they are already treated.

Jesse Arreguin and Linda Maio have brought this authoritarian measure before council.

Here is one good description of the proposals, via Copwatch: 

"1. Ordinance preventing panhandling within 10 feet of a parking pay station (akin to our ATM ordinance). 

"2. Review ordinances other cities use to address public urination/defecation and return with recommendations for implementation; ensure public restrooms are available and well publicized. Involve BART in exploring possible locations. 

"3. Ordinance preventing the placement of personal objects in planters, tree wells, or within 3 feet of a tree well. 

"4. Ordinance preventing lying on planter walls or inside of planters. 

"5. Ordinance preventing deployment of bedding, tenting, sleeping pads, mattresses, blankets, etc. on sidewalks and plazas from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. 

"6. Ordinance preventing personal items from being affixed to public fixtures including poles, bike racks (except bikes), planters, trees, tree guards, newspaper racks, parking meters and pay stations. Pet leashes exempt only as not prohibited in BMC 10.12.110. 

"7. Ordinance preventing unpermitted cooking on public sidewalks. 

"8. Survey business districts to determine adequacy of enforcement of current ordinances; develop an action plan for consistent enforcement as needed. 

"9. Clarify if "no trespass" signs on private property extend to sitting against buildings. 

"10.Assess adequacy of six-foot right-of-way to enable sufficient pedestrian and wheelchair passage particularly in high-traffic areas. 

" 11.Refer to the budget process extending transition-aged youth shelter hours beyond winter months" 

To that list we might add an item carried over from March 10th: Jesse Arreguin's proposal to compete against panhandlers with donation boxes downtown, branded "positive change". These new boxes would turn over donations to city bureaucracy, either directly or in the form of the Downtown Berkeley Association. The middle class will take a large cut of handouts meant for the very poor. 

Quite simply, Jesse Arreguin and Linda Maio are launching a doubling down on the police attack on the down and out. 

Our supposedly progressive District 4 councilman, the supposed inheritor of Dona Spring's legacy, has joined with those who want to bum rush the poor and the crazy out of town, by means of police and court system violence. 

Let us be clear on the morality of this maneuver: 

Nobody likes being panhandled but proximity to a parking pay station has nothing to do with it. "10 feet from a parking pay station" is a feeble excuse to write tickets, to send random-down-and-out people to jail, to enrich the police forces, and to pretend for the sake of effete snobs that at long last Something Is Being Done. 

And what of "personal objects in planters, tree wells, or within 3 feet of a tree well"? Here, Jesse and Linda propose to penalize poor people for owning a few things, and setting them down where they are out of the way. 

What of an ordinance preventing stretching out on a planter wall, an architectural feature perfect for relaxing in public while not spending money for the benefit of local landlords? 

Jesse Arreguin and Linda Maio have taken the view that if you aren't giving money to Berkeley's landlords then you have little business downtown and should certainly not try to make yourself comfortable or set anything down. 

The measure goes on like this and only hypocrites and liars can find in this sorry excuse for legislation anything much more than an attempt to respond to a humanitarian crisis by penalizing the victims further. 

Linda Maio once declared that she trembled with rage on the dais at the assertion she was less than a progressive. 

For reasons that are hard to imagine, Jesse Arreguin is still presumed a progressive. 

Listen, folks: 

Nobody particularly enjoys an overly aggressive panhandler. 

Nobody thrills to the "fun" of encountering a homeless mentally ill person in mid-crisis. 

White people don't like being name called racial names. 

People of color don't like being eyed with obvious suspicion and disgust. 

Poor people don't like getting brushed off the sidewalk by aggro khaki'ed business bros. 

Nobody can stand dumb students who zombie through town deafened by ear buds and tunnel-visioned into their not-so-smart phones. 

Women righteously resent the cat calls and the "b word". 

The list goes on and on. 

Yet none of this justifies blue-suited men with guns and restraints violently punching down the most vulnerable. 

None of this justifies our society's failure to manage public restrooms and showers and shelter. 

None of this justifies the equally offensive sneering and snarky behavior of rich theater patrons, ice cream seekers, and khaki-and-hemp swells about town. 

Expanded police, and jail, and court system violence is not the answer and it will only make matters worse. 

It is the height of malevolent cynicism that Linda Maio and Jesse Arreguin propose such state sponsored violence as a condition of meager improvements to social spending. 

There will be protests at the March 17th council meeting and I have no idea if they will be large or small. Regardless, if Berkeley wants to keep going in this direction, our City Council will make Berkeley ground zero for a lasting confrontation. Berkeley will lead the nation, even if the council dais can not.