Public Comment

Two different Berkeley neighborhoods reported incidents of Black Lives Matter signs being torn down in the last month, the same month The Way Christian Center on University Avenue was set on fire hours after placing a Black Lives Matter sign across its entrance. The Berkeley police investigated it as arson since "nobody was hurt." 

The chilling recognition that racism in Berkeley can take the same form it has taken against Black churches for hundreds of years and go unrecognized by Berkeley police clarifies several things. We need more informed leadership in the Berkeley Police Department and the City Manager's office. We need to stand taller with Black churches and activists who speak out for justice. And we need to re-elect Cheryl Davila to the Berkeley City Council. 

Often referred to as "the conscience of the council," District Two Representative Cheryl Davila represents community voices routinely excluded from the comfortable back rooms where many Berkeley decisions are made. Sometimes other councilmembers will join her efforts to address inequities and disparities ignored for years in our wealthy town. But all too often the Berkeley City Council majority will let solid policy efforts die for lack of a second so that there will be no embarrassing discussion to haunt electoral chances.  

Councilmember Davila had no particular ambition to be on the Berkeley City Council. She's a respected career woman with a strong, close family deeply threaded into the community. But former District Two Representative Darryl Moore, who had appointed her to the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission, suddenly removed her in an effort to squelch a vote on Palestinian rights, replacing her with the spouse of his legislative aide. 

The scandal rocked the community. It was a free speech issue. It was a human rights issue. It was poorly disguised as a procedural issue that rattled through circles not ordinarily aware of the commission or its work. Cheryl Davila maintained a steady, dignified voice for human rights through it all, deciding afterward to run for Moore's seat. Despite Moore having the backing of the city's insiders and the heft of incumbency, Davila won. 

Cheryl Davila's passion for building a unified community is informed; she is leading two regional task forces crafting forward-thinking legislation to address our city's disparities in education, health, housing, policing, and employment disproportionately burdening communities of color. Her focus and intensity on the council never clouds her compassion, her sense of humor, and the comfortable way she welcomes others. She's a celebrated presence at local festivals and events, and one of the few who sat for hours with street activist/artist William Barclay Caldeira, who called himself 300, listening with an open, patient heart to his despair and pain before his death last year. There are no spotlights on these moments, but they bear witness to a broader vision of the healing qualities of human family and connection often left in the dust of impoverished policy. 

Her circle of support speaks volumes: Ben Bartlett, Councilmember, City of Berkeley City District 3; Gus Newport, Former Mayor, City of Berkeley; Carol Kennerly, Former Vice Mayor, City of Berkeley; Ying Ling, Former Councilmember, City of Berkeley; Eduardo Martinez, Councilmember, City of Richmond; Melvin Willis, Councilmember, City of Richmond; Jovanka Beckles, Former Councilmember, City of Richmond / Former State Assembly Candidate; Mansour Id-Deen, President of Berkeley NAACP*; Fania Davis, JD, PhD, Former Founding Director Restorative Justice for Oakland Youth (RJOY)*; Danny Glover, Actor, Film Director & Political Activist; Keith Carson, Supervisor, County of Alameda; Jane Kim, Former Supervisor, City of San Francisco; Maxwell G. Anderson Jr., Former Councilmember, City of Berkeley District 3; Geoff Ellsworth, Mayor, City of St. Helena; Mariko Yamada, Former State Assembly Member; Rochelle Pardue Okimoto, Councilmember, City of El Cerrito; Pennie Opal Plant, Co-founder Idle No More and Gathering Tribes; Ruscal Cayangyang, Former School Board Member, Vallejo Unified School District, and many more (including this writer).

The considerable circles of talent endorsing Councilmember Davila are often outvoted by councils and boards unable to see this moment as crucial. And this moment is crucial. The ordinary opposition to more effective social justice efforts is circling her seat on the Berkeley City Council hoping to preserve the traditional success of simply posing as supportive of transformative re-prioritization while accommodating disparities so shocking that in 2014 Berkeley was ranked in the top ten for income disparity, and little has changed. 

It isn't just the pandemic that risks exacerbating Berkeley's affection for weak, ineffective policy. It's the council majority's willingness to let Berkeley's Chief of Police state on the record that without the indiscriminate use of potentially lethal toxic chemicals the Berkeley police would have no choice but to "shoot people" and then be satisfied with a limp apology after the ensuing outrage. We can't afford any more decades of racism in our police force, our housing policy, our schools, or our priorities. 

Councilmember Davila's extraordinary circle of talent and family is a community that knows how to lead with love. And her successes, which include adopting the third Climate Emergency Declaration in the country, stopping Berkeley’s participation in Urban Shield, initiating our “Welcome to the City of Berkeley, Ohlone Territory” signs, arranging for the West Campus pool to be open all year, expanding the homeless shower program, expanding the criteria for opening Berkeley's Emergency Storm Shelter, banning the sale of flavored tobacco, helping start "Voices Against Violence," a program designed to support youth at risk of involvement in violence in Berkeley, is all the more impressive if you've paid attention to the initiatives that died for lack of a second at the council. 

No matter what extraordinary tragedy her family has had to endure, or what belittling treatment sometimes comes her way at the Berkeley City Council, Cheryl Davila has met it with grace. It unites her with the hardships she hears from her constituents and never seems to shake her determination not just to see the broad picture, but to speak its name and provide its most enduring stewardship.