Editorials

Strange as it seems, the election is upon us. TV pundits are counting down the days until the official presidential deadline: 54, 53, 52…. If you’re a Berkeley resident like me, you’re haunting your mailbox waiting for your vote-by-mail ballot to arrive so you can immediately vote and send it back. And like almost everyone else in Berkeley, possibly with the exception of a few Loony Libertarians or still-sulky Bernie-Babies, deciding who gets your vote is No Problem.

That’s on the president’s line, of course, and Barbara Lee for Congress too. Even when you scroll down to the California offices, many of the choices are easy.

Myself, I’m a bit annoyed with the record of our state legislators, Senator Nancy Skinner and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, both of whom are obviously bought and sold by the building industry, as evidenced by their consistent support of the numerous bills put forward by Scott Wiener and his gang which are intended to strip local governments of their control of land use. But these proposals have now been shelved for the second time, and since neither Berkeley legislator has any meaningful opposition it doesn’t matter whether you vote for them or not.

Actually, Skinner has a very good record on police-related issues, so that’s enough reason to tick her box. Buffy is terminally cute and has a cute baby or two, but I’m not sure that’s enough to get my vote. I did sympathize a bit with her well-publicized need to schlep her nursing infant to Sacramento in order to vote last week. I managed a congressional primary campaign with a baby on my hip and two older kids trailing behind—it’s not easy. Let’s say that for now Buff’s a toss-up in my list.

Today I got email announcing the local endorsements of Berkeley Citizens’ Action and Berkeley Progressive Alliance, and I observe that they’ve agreed with my choices for Berkeley City Council. Good for them.

Here they are:

District 2 City Council: Cheryl Davila, website: www.cheryldavila.vote
District 3 City Council: Ben Bartlett, website: www.benny.vote
District 5 City Council: Sophie Hahn, website: www.sophiehahn.com
District 6 City Council: Richard Illgen, website: www.richardforcitycouncil.org 

I notice that as yet these groups have, like me, taken no position on the state legislators.  

The first three on the above list are all incumbents, and as a frequent observer of the Berkeley City Council I think they’ve all been doing fine. Davila is never afraid to stick up for her (and my) principles. Bartlett is well tuned to what might be called traditional Berkeley values, coming from a long-time Southwest Berkeley family. Hahn has both a good mind and a good heart, both of great value in trying times. 

What the three of them have lacked, in terms of getting things done, is a consistent reliable majority on the council. Kate Harrison in District 1 votes with them, but that’s still only four votes where five are needed to accomplish anything. That’s where Rich Illgen comes in. 

He goes way back in Berkeley, being an early champion of tenants’ rights. His mid-life legal career was in the Oakland city attorney’s office, where his reputation was as an expert in the arcane world of municipal law. One of Berkeley’s major current problems is the lack of timely and vigorous staff implementation of policies developed by the council in sensitive areas such as homelessness and police practices. Having a retired city attorney who knows how to get things done on the council would be a major asset. 

Rich’s opponent, Susan Wengraf, has just been in the District 6 office for much too long. She started as the paid aide to her predecessor Betty Olds in 1992 and took over Olds’ seat when she retired in 2008. That will add up to 32 years if she’s re-elected in 2020, and that’s just too darn long. Anything you might want to complain about getting done or not getting done in Berkeley should really be laid at her doorstep. Her instincts are good, but her execution is lacking.  

She’s the quintessential moderate, the reliable fourth vote for worthy proposals when she’s pretty sure there are not five votes to actually pass them. She’s often compared to Susan Collins: there for you when you don’t need her vote, absent when you do.  

If an energetic progressive like Illgen replaces Wengraf, the council might actually accomplish something. It’s time for a change in District 6. 

Berkeley in a host of ways is a mirror for all the ills of society. The two most visible problems are lack of affordable housing and the need for police reform. We are tempted to think that these are “only in Berkeley” issues, but in fact they are increasingly present everywhere, especially in the Bay Area.  

The catch-all adjective “affordable” is used by advocates of all stripes to cover a variety of sins. Needed “affordable” housing can cover everything from unhoused people camped along the freeway to teachers who can’t afford to live here given their inadequate pay.  

Berkeley becomes a prime target for gentrification when still-solvent techies working at home decide that small houses with backyards and extra bedrooms trump views and kitchens with marble countertops as life-style enhancements. It turns out that it’s hard to work at home with three roommates in a two-bedroom apartment, no matter how exciting the bird’s eye view of the bridges might be. They can and do outbid traditional residents in what have been lower-income ethnic neighborhoods like South and West Berkeley. 

What that pattern will look like in the wake of Covid19 is the subject of much conjecture and few facts. 

The Berkeley faction which has championed over-building of expensive apartments on our few remaining available sites seems to be facing a moment of reckoning. Real estate sections these days are full of the all-too-unsurprising stories about vacant market rate apartments in the cities amid a land-rush to the inner suburbs The developer-backed attempt to cancel back yards is losing momentum as people who can afford it long to grow some vegies while working at home.  

As young people are counseled to form pods while fighting Covid19, stack-and-pack rental apartments are losing favor to group houses in older neighborhoods. But at the same time the essential workers who need places to live they can afford are still driving to work from Tracy and beyond. 

Police officers are often mentioned as those who might need affordable housing in Berkeley. In fact many on the Berkeley police force make annual wages in the hundreds of thousands, and they choose to live outside Berkeley because they don’t like it here, not because they can’t afford it. That’s their right, but a sensible interpretation of the poorly-named Defund the Police movement would say that social workers and mental health professionals (who should be doing the kind of work now done clumsily by violence-trained police officers) should be hired more often and paid better. 

And finally, what about the mayor? In crucial votes on the council, he’s all too often effectively a cipher. He’s much too deferential both to employed city staff, who tend to ignore the few important decisions made by the city council, and to UC Berkeley, where he was a student government officer. His gratuitous offer to sacrifice People’s Park, a City of Berkeley Historic Landmark situated in a valuable potential Historic District, to the university’s insatiable appetite for expansion is inexcusable. But he has no effective opposition, so my non-endorsement won’t make much difference.