Public Comment

Please write an email to object to the Berkeley City Council's latest agenda-setting chicanery.

This City Council's agenda subcommittee has scheduled a special meeting at Longfellow School at 5:00 on June 25th. The meeting will be about significant benefits. The Zoning Adjustment Board will also be meeting that evening, with a vote on the FEIR on the proposed Harold Way project on the ZAB agenda.

Council will ask ZAB to delay its vote on the Harold Way FEIR until the council railroads through its definition of significant benefits. Apparently the council expects ZAB to read, analyze, understand and implement their significant benefits definition instantly and vote the way the council wants. 

I am shocked by this manipulative, pseudo-public process. Our mayor and council appears to be shedding even the appearance of democracy. Many reading this must know that Mayor Bates hijacked democracy at this week's council meeting when he hurriedly distributed a proposed order related to the arts fee, refused to hear any public comments and rushed a vote. It was shameless. I believe the council is going to do something similar at this special significant benefits meeting on June 25th. 

Regardless of how people feel about proposed development downtown, we should all care that our public servants follow the law. 

Please write to council and ask them to reschedule the June 25th significant benefits meeting. Tell them that scheduling two important public meetings simultaneously denies public participation and hijacks democracy. 

Write to this address: council@cityofberkeley.info 

People can cut and paste this email or write their own.