Features

Berkeley’s mayor and eight city councilmembers, who all together spent a total of approximately $456,000 to get elected to their present terms, failed to reach a consensus Tuesday on presenting a ballot measure to voters that would shift at least some of those expenses to the public. 

Without taking a vote, the council asked city staff to study two scenarios to publicly finance elections: one (proposed by Mayor Tom Bates) that would give public funds to candidates and another (proposed by Councilmember Linda Maio) to require the city to match individual campaign donations dollar for dollar until a set spending ceiling is reached. The Bates proposal also included a provision that in order to receive city funds for their campaigns, candidates would have to prove their viability by collecting $5 contributions from at least 700 separate individuals. If passed, the Bates plan would make Berkeley the first city in the country to fully finance elections. 

Staff will report back to the council on April 27th with recommendations on the plans and potential taxes hikes to cover the costs. In the case of fully financed elections, costs would range between $1.4 and $4 million, according to a proposal offered by the Center for Governmental Studies at UCLA.  

Possible financing schemes include raising the hotel occupancy tax or parking fines. 

In advocating his plan, Bates told the Council that many qualified candidates don’t want to take the financial plunge to run for city office. The average cost of running for office in Berkeley is now $200,000 for mayor and $30,000 for councilmember. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington argued that such a system would not only encourage more candidates, but would keep special interests out of Berkeley elections. “It’s horrendous that by giving donations from a wife and a contractor and employees, one developer can manipulate 25 percent of the money you need for a campaign,” he said. 

Councilmember Miriam Hawley said she opposed either public financing proposal because she believed voters would likely be barraged with ballot measures requesting tax hikes for more pressing needs, including library services and school funding. “We’re asking people to make terrible choices,” she said. “I’d hate to see people choose this [public election financing] over schools.” 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak called Bates’ full funding plan, “an incumbent protection act.” To level the ground for candidates challenging better known incumbents, he proposed granting challengers more money. He also wanted public funding extended to ballot measures and have staff study increasing councilmember salaries.  

“This job doesn’t pay enough to attract good younger candidates, which is why most of us are so old,” he said. 

Proponents of fully funded elections, including Bates, Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring, had hoped that a vote last January by the Fair Campaigns Practices Commission—approving in principle the concept of Berkeley publicly financing local elections—would help catapult the issue past the council. But when councilmembers offered vastly different opinions Tuesday, Bates told Worthington, “I don’t think the votes are here tonight to do this,” and the matter was put over to staff. 

To get a measure on the November ballot, the council has to approve a plan by July. 

If the council fails to reach a consensus, proponents of fully financed elections might take matters into their own hands. “We’re considering a signature drive if [the council] doesn’t move very soon,” said Sam Ferguson a UC Berkeley student and co-founder of the Berkeley Fair Election Coalition. He added his group hadn’t settled on how they would fund the program if they tried put it on the November ballot. 

The council did reject one election plan. On a 4-5 vote (Bates, Maio, Worthington, Breland and Spring voting no) they killed a more modest election reform proposed by Councilmember Wozniak that would have asked staff to prepare a ballot measure increasing maximum campaign contributions from $250 to $500 for mayoral campaigns.  

In non-election news, the council, amid much confusion, rejected the most stringent regulations proposed by Councilmember Spring to tighten rules for developers who offer cultural space in return for height bonuses for new buildings.  

Spring’s side could only muster four votes (Spring, Worthington, Breland and Maio) to have the planning and civic arts commissions consider provisions that would have prevented developers from renting or selling the additional housing until the cultural space was filled, make the cultural space available only for public venues, and give the city power to force a developer to find a new tenant for the space if part of it has been vacant for more than six months. 

For a fleeting moment, Spring won the vote on the latter two issues, with support from Councilmember Hawley. After Mayor Bates pointed out she had accidently voted to support Spring, Hawley, who appeared confused about what her earlier “yes” vote had implied, asked for a motion to reconsider. Hawley then reversed her vote on the commission referral matters, siding with Bates and Councilmember Betty Olds in opposition. Councilmembers Wozniak and Shirek abstained. 

Spring’s proposal was sparked by public complaint about the Gaia Building, owned by Panoramic Interests, which was two extra stories by the city of Berkeley as mitigation for a proposed cultural space. While there are current plans to move a cultural tenant into the building, the cultural space has remained vacant in the three years since the downtown mixed-use project was completed. 

At its 4:30 pm working session preceding its regular meeting, the council heard a report from Planning Director Dan Marks on proposed changes to the city’s Creeks Ordinance. 

At the council’s request, the City Attorney’s office had earlier presented two proposed amendments to the ordinance, one that would prevent new development within 30 feet of a creek within the city limits, a second that would address the issue of single family homes destroyed by natural disaster. At Monday’s workshop, Marks expanded on those topics, including proposed areas for the Council to discuss such as an appropriate distance to set back developments from creeks and what position the city should take towards creek daylighting. 

The Council is not expected to take up formal discussion of proposed changes in the creek ordinance until later this year.