Columns

There were so many meetings this week, I could not cover everything. Thursday evening, I was listening to the Richmond Planning Commission with my earphones from my computer while I listened to the Berkeley Design Review committee on my iPad. I missed the Fair Campaign Practices Commission, which looked very interesting with all the election complaints, and the joint Parks and Waterfront Commission and Public Works Commission meeting about the final list for spending proceeds of the T1 bond issue's Phase 2.

I am still feeling my way around with this column with what to include and still leave it at a readable length, so please keep reading, and as for reading, I will place at the end what books I am reading this week. 

The pandemic bad news: The Johns Hopkins Friday tally of total cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. was 11,911,261, which means that with nearly 200,000 new cases every day we will have crossed 12 million on this Saturday. The news on the vaccines is promising, but availability to ordinary folks is months away. All that socializing with happy talk about bubbles on November 9^th at the Mayor’s Town Hall online has disappeared, and been replaced with "do not travel, do not have in person Thanksgiving celebrations with people outside of your household" and curfews. Why is all this socializing over food and drinks so bad? You take your mask off. I used Johns Hopkins data for the chart, but my daily tracking is with https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ 

The civic week started with the Agenda and Rules committee, where some of us worried there would be movement forward on Councilmember Droste’s proposal to reorganize the City’s commissions. We received a reprieve for the moment with Droste extending the time frame for review until March 1, 2021. The other item of worry was modifying the status of the BMASP (Berkeley Marina Area Specific Plan)/Berkeley Pier-WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority) Ferry from design to planning. Wind surfers complained at the T1 meetings that the proposed placement of the pier for the ferry would seriously impact recreation uses in the bay. The City Manager withdrew the agenda item. 

Monday evening at the Children, Youth and Recreation Commission, Public Works Director Scott Ferris said there were three proposals for the Berkeley Pier and Ferry, and there would be focus groups in December, public meetings in January, a Council vote in February and presentation to WETA in March. I looked over my past weekly summaries and the first mention of a presentation on the Berkeley Pier and Ferry was October 2019, unscheduled. On January 6, 2020 it appeared as a “worksession” for October 20, 2020. On September 8, 2020 the “worksession” on the BMASP/Berkeley Pier -WETA Ferry was rescheduled to February 16, 2021. It looks like we can expect the usual, a draft from the consultants with “don’t you love it” and a quick vote for approval. I would like to see the data that demonstrates all this makes any sense. 

The Tuesday evening Council meeting ended early (shock) and finished off with public comment by a woman, whose name I did not catch, who was hysterical about how afraid she was of the downtown, with people shooting up drugs, discarded syringes and homeless people harassing her and her children. I was kind of wondering where all this happened, as I haven’t seen it myself in my walks downtown. There are more homeless people on the street, that is for sure, but as for being afraid, I actually liked it better when we had the occupying group camped at the post office. I always felt they were keeping an eye on the goings on about town. 

Wednesday the Citizens for a Cultural Civic Center (CCCC) met with Mayor Arreguin and District 4 Councilmember Kate Harrison. CCCC has come to agreement on two things: 1) we oppose building new council chambers in the park and 2) any seismic retrofitting of Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall and the Veterans Memorial Building should be at least to the seismic performance level of damage control, which would leave buildings that are repairable if we finally get that overdue major earthquake on the Hayward fault. No one supported building new council chambers in the park, and the Mayor added that the contract for the Berkeley City Council with BUSD (Berkeley Unified School District) to meet at BUSD headquarters is 10 years (2018-2028) with an option for a 10-year renewal. 

We also learned that it was the Mayor who pushed for a park design to close Center Street and Allston Way. Interesting. The Mayor has, to my knowledge, never owned a car, cared for a disabled person or had children, not that any of these things are required to understand the complications and impacts of this plan, but it does help. 

The proposal for the Veterans Building is to make it a performance center. If Center Street is closed, then someone with a disability can’t be dropped off at the entrance and a person in a wheelchair can’t transfer from a disabled vehicle into the chair near the building. If we disregard the difficulties of the disabled, how will it be possible to bring equipment to the building that might be used in performance? 

It is possible to have the area filled with golf carts hauling people and equipment around, but it just demonstrates a lack of thought about the impact on people and a self-serving fantasy about a grand park that eliminates whole classes of people. As someone who tried to make life as normal as possible and bring joy to a disabled partner dependent on a wheelchair, I find this more than upsetting. 

As for closing Allston Way, when Berkeley High is in session on site, there are over 3000 students and Allston Way is the main entrance and drop off point for students. If Allston Way is closed that pushes drop-off from cars to the Milvia bike lane or MLK Jr Way which is a main traffic artery. Managing traffic on Center and Allston with partial or complete closing for events can work as it does now, but permanently that is just …! 

I’m going to leave my comments about the Fair and Impartial Policing Working Group for next week, when there will be fewer meetings to review and the Declaration of Racism as a Public Health Crisis will be on the agenda for the City Council Health, Life Enrichment, Equity & Community Committee. Now, just let it be said out loud to everyone who is White, Berkeley is not experienced in the same way if someone is Black. 

The Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment & Sustainability Committee took up discussion of terminating the sale of new combustion vehicles by 2025 and of resale by 2040. Passing an ordinance to terminate the resale of combustion vehicles in Berkeley by 2040 actually makes sense, as then it could be required when selling a new or used car to inform the buyers that the day is coming when they will be stuck with a vehicle they can’t drive or sell. 

Now on to why I tried to listened to two meetings at the same time. The City of Richmond is rushing through approval of building housing with 2000 to 4000 units on top of the Zeneca site, a site of toxic waste left by the industries that used to operate at this location. The new Council to be installed in January would likely reject as foolish putting new housing on a toxic dump. Many months ago Cheryl Davila submitted an agenda item to send letters in opposition to building housing at this site including a letter to the City of Richmond. Berkeley Council declined with the reason that Berkeley couldn’t ask another City to take or to oppose an action. A compromise, to eliminate Richmond and send the letter to other entities, fell apart. 

So here we are with unanimous approval by the Richmond Planning Commission to forward a recommendation for approval of the “Campus Bay Project” to the City of Richmond Council. The description by the developer’s consultant of a plan to add chemicals and bacteria to remediate the site sounded rather fantastical. It was followed with a statement that they would put up barriers where they couldn’t decontaminate the soil. It is more like turning lead into gold, and I think we can all see who will get the gold. No one asked pressing questions about the process before they gave their unanimous vote. 

And, then there was the 600 Addison (across from Aquatic Park) commercial research and development proposal which claims to be zero net energy because at some time in the future this all electric building will get its electricity from 100% renewable sources. This is an interesting twist: All-electric buildings can otherwise bypass construction to reduce energy consumption by claiming zero net energy through attaching it to the grid. 

The Design Review Committee's oohs and aahs over the revised 600 Addison plans were clear. The revised project plans are better, with scaling back the buildings, saving more trees and reducing parking by 100 spaces to 944, but when Berkeley is eliminating parking requirements for housing projects, how can anyone in good conscience declare 944 parking spaces as environmentally sound and reasonable? Sixty percent of green house gases in Berkeley are from transportation. Just a simple exercise of estimating VMT (vehicle miles traveled) with filling the parking lot to only 80% and travel from around the Bay Area came to 21,700 miles driven per day to and from work. Add to this, some cities like Palo Alto are deciding not to build along the shoreline due to SLR (sea level rise). Check the supplemental communication for November 19, 2020. There is still much to be considered. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Zoning_Adjustment_Board/600_Addison_-_ZP2019-0215.aspx 

This is more than enough for one sitting. Wishing you the best for the Thanksgiving Holiday, be safe, wear your mask, call friends. Next year will be better if we can make it through pandemic fatigue. 

As promised what I am reading: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson and audio book Rage by Bob Woodward