Columns

It was a relatively quiet week for Berkeley City meetings, all things considered, which means there was only one City meeting at a time. Monday was a test of endurance with one meeting after another, which pales in the challenge of the rest of the week to stay focused between toggling back and forth between election vote counts and Worldometer’s daily count of new COVID-19 new cases. The pandemic is raging and California is not escaping. Just two weeks ago the California seven-day daily average of new cases was 3300. Now that number is 4740. Johnston Medical is out of medium Moldex N95 respirator masks and Moldex has told them not to expect any more. Worldometers reported 132,540 new cases on Friday. 

The proposed ordinance for regulating the Police Acquisition and Use of Controlled Equipment is off to the City Attorney for review, and will come back to the Public Safety Committee in two weeks. As expected, Police Chief Andrew Greenwood complained about the proposed reporting requirements for the use of controlled equipment. 

A proposal to refer developing a program for outdoor dining to the City Manager was passed out of the Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment & Sustainability Committee. It should appear on a future council agenda.  

Now to the real news: Mayor Arreguin said to put District 8 Councilmember Lori Droste’s measure “Commission Reorganization for Post-COVID 19 Budget Recovery” on the agenda for the next Agenda and Rules Policy Committee (November 16). He gave no clue as to how he felt about the measure, but there certainly appears to be pressure to gut Berkeley’s Commissions. The group of councilmembers with Droste as the author and co-sponsors Rigel Robinson and Rashi Kesarwani have found the perfect vehicle for this: COVID-19, the budget and the near complete rule by the City Manager which has shuttered most commission meetings during the pandemic.  

What is interesting is that Droste and her co-sponsors only want to consider staff hours expended supporting commissions. There is complete and total disregard for the hundreds of hours the citizen appointees donate in service to our community. If Droste, Robinson and Kesarwani see so little value in commission work, then maybe they need to take a hard look at who they appoint and the positions they leave vacant.  

I have attended many of these city meetings, more than I can ever count and while there are a few appointees who seem to only warm the seat, there are many, the majority, who give of their incredible expertise and experience and we are better for it. Democracy is messy and I certainly don’t agree with every decision from every commission, and some meetings are agonizing to sit through. Nonetheless, I can say without hesitation that for most commission members, I appreciate their dedication to serving and the contributions they make.  

It isn’t easy to find people willing to serve, and I would expect it might be harder after this punch in the gut, but would I dismantle the system if given the opportunity, even when reading through every one of those commission agendas has ruined many of my Friday nights?  

The answer is no. There are improvements that can be made, and while some commissions should probably meet less frequently, there are other commissions that need to meet more often, or at least they should establish subcommittees to work through tasks.  

I would like to see commission meetings turned into City podcasts. Then there would be a record beyond cryptic minutes and I could listen at 1 ½ speed.  

Two of the commissions that did not make even the mention of inclusion in a paragraph in Droste’s 14 page document are the two commissions that have been carrying the load of analyzing spending of funds from Bond Measure T1, the Parks and Waterfront Commission and the Public Works Commission. We can thank Bryce Nesbitt of the Public Works Commission for introducing us to the Portland Loo https://portlandloo.com on Wednesday evening at the joint Parks and Waterfront Commission and Public Works Commission T1 meeting. These could provide more public bathrooms with savings and safety. Amazing, one would think from reading the Droste document that commissioners only waste staff time and are devoid of ideas and solutions. 

As for T1, not every need or ask will be filled, but I am relieved to see planning for the African American Holistic Center is still on the list. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/MeasureT1Updates.aspx 

Thursday morning the Citizens for a Cultural Civic Center, the group convened by the Downtown Berkeley Association’s John Caner (email johncaner@gmail.com to join) met with Marc Steyer of Tipping Engineering as an invited guest. It was a good discussion made better by sharing the chart of the five levels of seismic retrofitting of existing buildings found on page 669 in part 32 of the 33- part 903-page packet from September 22 City Council meeting on the proposed Civic Center Plan (ugh!). The group reached a general agreement that the seismic study of old city hall needs to be done and the goal of retrofitting should be to have a building that can withstand an earthquake and be repairable. That Seismic Performance Level is called Damage Control and it was not included as a possibility in the documents from the Gehl consultants. 

Last, on a positive note, since it now looks like we really will get rid of Trump, and the first woman vice president grew up in Berkeley, Steve Finacom announced at the end of a long night at the Landmarks Preservation Commission that he will present at a future meeting landmarking the apartment building where Kamala Harris grew up.