Due to the extreme and deadly surge in the coronavirus this winter, there is a shelter in place order in Contra Costa County and in many places elsewhere. Most people are probably unhappy about this, partly because it comes at the height of the holiday season, and partly because most people would rather get out and do things. -more-

When President-elect Joe Biden takes office Jan 21 he will be faced with some very expensive problems, from bailing out the Covid-19 economy to getting a handle on climate change. Vaccinating over 300 million people will not be cheap, and wrestling the US hydrocarbon-based economy in the direction of renewable energies will come with a hefty price tag. One place to find some of that would be to respond to Russian, Chinese and United Nations (UN) proposals to demilitarize space, heading off what will be an expensive--and destabilizing--arms race for the new high ground. -more-

A short and timely item, if it's not too late.

Celebrate the Solstice on Monday, December 21. Curious about the Winter Solstice? Your questions may be answered, thanks to a Monday webcast set to run from 4pm until sunset (or so). Alan Gould, a Lawrence Hall of Science leader of Winter Solstice Gatherings, will host a free, public zoom event to commemorate the advent of winter. There will be demonstrations of hands-on projects relating to the astronomy of seasons followed by an exploration of solstice celebrations around the world. To join ithis free event, follow this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5108484466?pwd=QlpnNFhFSlhvZW41bU5OZGt0eE11UT09

Monday, December

21st

4 pm -more-

Merry Holidays and Happy Post-Solstice to all our readers! We're mostly taking the next couple of weeks off. If there's a major happening that absolutely must be reported, we'll add the information as an Extra to the current issue, dated 12/18/2020. With any luck, we'll be out of the abominable 2020 when the next regular issue appears in January. -more-

Because national and local anti-eviction laws will expire on December 31 millions of tenants could face eviction. According to the Census Bureau 11.6 million tenants would not even be able to pay their rent the following month nor their mortgage payment if they are home owners. Particularly troubling, the number of tenants struggling to meet their obligations has been increasing in the last several months,

The major problem is not only that the coronavirus is impacting people’s lives. Also, many millions of working people are being deprived of their livelihood. Particularly worrisome has been the considerable increase in long term unemployment. Just recently the number of workers unemployed for at least six months has tripled in one month from 1.2 million to 3.6 million. This huge jump is very rare and also quite ominous.

Could it be the dark cloud before the thunderstorm? Perhaps, because too many job seekers are crowding the job market. So even working people who have been fortunate enough to have a job have been forced to accept lower pay. Among the consequences is that a larger percentage of their income must be allocated to paying rent.

How much rent is just right? We have been told that affordable rent is about 30 percent of income. But this rule of thumb certainly does not apply to poor tenants because it would yield very little to the landlord. But unfortunately for tenants, the high rents that property owners charge leaves very little to renters.

According to researchers, a substantial number of poor tenants must pay at least 80 percent of their income to retain their apartments. In Los Angeles county 600,000 residents spend 90 percent of their income on rent. Clearly, the high rents do not leave much, if anything, for food and medical expenses. And since almost two thirds have children, their low income can be very problematic and even dangerous.

Moreover, when tenants face eviction they are often summoned to court. Think for a moment of the legal obligations of the judge. It is not their job to put pressure on the landlord to charge a more reasonable rent to protect the health of the tenant. Instead, their task is to do what they can to compel the tenant to meet its financial obligations regardless of the adverse impact on the well-being of the family.

Some evicted tenants may have family members, friends, or an available facility to provide shelter to evicted families . But most tenants are not so lucky. And of course, for the same financial reasons they were evicted, they are unable to pay the rent for another apartment. So it is not surprising to learn that eviction is the main reason why evicted tenants are homeless. -more-

YouTube failing is the modern equivalent of a power failure and thus no TV. What do we do? We might have to speak to our family. We might find out that Monopoly comes in a physical version. More importantly we won't be able to upload our latest, greatest video clip. It's time to send in a strongly worded protest email, what? Gmail is also down? -more-

I don't understand why nationally-known Democrats haven't simply taught the American people what the difference is between a "Social Democrat"and a "Socialist"? It is so simple---A social democrat wants to keep our market-based capitalist economic system but wants to have a lot of federal government social programs to help the people--A socialist wants to abolish capitalism and have a socialist economy. What is so hard to understand about this? They are not the same thing. -more-

On November 4th, after it became apparent that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 presidential election, I suspected that he would not be a gracious loser. Therefore, I haven't been surprised that Trump has taken the position that the election was "stolen" by Joe Biden. What has shocked me is that Donald has stopped doing his day job. In the midst of four crises, Trump has abandoned any semblance of operating as President of the United States. -more-

The lives of most mentally ill people are not filled with glitz and glamor, nor do we live lives of ease and abundance. This is unless we have one or more benefactors in the family willing to shower wealth on us.

Unfortunately, many persons with mental illness fall through the cracks of a broken treatment system, they may become incarcerated or homeless, and/or they could die prematurely from any of numerous causes. This has become normalized, and it should not be normalized.

Persons with mental illness have a shortened expectancy due to the health risks of psychiatric treatment. Some have shorter lives due to poor self-care, and some fall prey to suicide. Thus, a long, happy, and healthy life is often the exception and not the rule.

The above describes the reality that mentally ill people have it hard enough. When disabled and accepting treatment, many of us can not perform well enough at a job to last at one. The expectations of a job are often too steep. It is harder for us to show up for work every day than it is for someone who does not have the limitations of a disability and of mind-restricting drugs.

The expectation that we should be employed should be non-applicable for many of us--those of us whose cases are severe enough that we must be heavily medicated. Yet, if we are capable of employment, we should be encouraged in this. It is a fine line between trying to be encouraging, versus applying undue pressure. -more-

Using a blizzard of misleading appeals to his gullible supporters about the integrity of the election, Trump has raised roughly $250 million since Election Day. The contributions from thousands of duped donors across the country are deposited into several accounts, including Save America, which is loosely regulated and could be used to personally benefit the president after he leaves the White House.

More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, which Mr. Trump will control after he leaves office. This is about as much money as he spent to win his party’s presidential nomination in 2016.

Email and text solicitations have also solicited Trump supporters to give to a “Georgia Election Fund,” even though no funds go directly to either GOP Senator David Perdue or GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler. Instead, the fine print shows 75% of the donations to the Georgia fund go to Mr. Trump’s Save America PAC, with 25% to the Republican National Committee.

Who knew that losing an election would be so lucrative? Clearly, our shameless grifter-in-chief knew. -more-

A Glow of Hope in a Dark Time

During a weekly visit to the Chavez-Huerta Memorial—perched atop a summit at the Berkeley Marina—Santiago Casal found a votive candle left in front of the site's iconic "HOPE" stone.

A hand-written message taped to the outside of the container read: "For those who have lost, are suffering, and in memory of 300,000 people who died of covid-19. We remember you. Love."

Have an Xfinity Xmas

For the holidays, Xfinity has hired Steve Carrell to play an "overbearing, stress-eating, stay-at-home Santa" in a TV ad called "The Greatest Gift." In the video, Santa's elves save the day by filling empty gift boxes with "The Little Things" that count — "the smell of grandma's cooking," "grandpa's same old stories," and "family snowball fights."

But Xfinity's radio spots are not so jolly. They begin by conjuring familiar images of families gathering to share holiday memories but then listeners are warned that they'd better be prepared to increase their Internet speeds so that everyone can watch the day's football broadcasts and download their favorite holiday movie classics. And, of course, if your extended family includes children "who are gamers," make sure to expand your bandwidth so the young ones can go online and gun down avatars "to their hearts' content."

What a strange, isolating message: Gather everyone together under one roof so that each individual can feed their addiction to computer games, sports events, and social messaging. Not a word was heard about sharing thoughts in actual human conversation. Instead, the holiday becomes a hollow day with everyone in the family masking themselves behind glowing screens while practicing "anti-social distancing."

Karmic Strips

Covid-19 seems to be everywhere these days—except in the nation's comic strips.

Peanuts and the weekly Doonesbury strips can be excused—they're re-runs. But most panels still feature lots of unmasked characters crammed inside lots of tiny, crowded panels. So, here's a salute to the few who have set a good example. In recent weeks, masks have popped up in the panels of Foxtrot, Lio, and Candorville.

Politics in Strange Places

A special elbow bump goes out to Darrin Bell's Candorville comic strip for daring to wade into the turbulent waters of post-election politics. -more-

The week of December 13 City meetings started with the Council Budget and Finance Committee review of financial reports and Mayor Arreguin’s proposed annual appropriations, which include a $5 million additional allocation to the Police Department overtime budget. Hearing about this figure, I couldn’t stop thinking about the incident I wrote about last week, seeing 10 uniformed officers, 5 patrol cars and 5 meter-maid traffic vehicles all hanging out at McGee and Hearst with an empty dented meter-maid vehicle by the light post. I wondered: Is there nothing else to do in a city of over 100,000? My walk partner said it out loud.

Councilmember Kate Harrison suggested an allocation of $2.5 million and holding $1 million in reserve pending review of police overtime staffing at the end of the next quarter. The final proposal passed at Council on Tuesday evening was $3.5 million to police overtime and $1 million in reserve, as submitted by Teresa Berkeley-Simmons, Budget Manager.

This week was a lesson in how just a couple of words can dramatically change accountability, both as regards policing policy and to remove protections to preserve manufacturing space in West Berkeley.

Police Chief Greenwood sought an amendment to the Use of Force Policy passed by City Council on July 23, 2020, inserting the words “strive to” so the Use of Force Standard would read, “…officers shall strive to use the minimum amount of force…” The Police Review Commission (PRC) had rejected this insertion, determining it would water down the use of force policy to a semblance of effort, making it difficult to hold a police officer accountable for excessive use of force.

On Tuesday evening, after much discussion that pushed the Council meeting until 12:30 a.m., the final solution adopted by Council to 300.1.2 Use of Force Standard substituted “a” for “the” and added “within a range” in the definition of “minimal” amount of force. The final wording, “…In all cases where physical force is used, officers shall use a minimum amount of force…”

***

At the Planning Commission on Wednesday evening, Item 10, Business Support Zoning Amendment Referrals-Research and Development, did not look like much, a change of adding a word here and there, expanding the definition of what qualified as Research and Development, until Rick Auerbach, a longtime activist on behalf of West Berkeley’s artists and industries, spoke about the West Berkeley Plan. -more-

Worth Noting:

Just one month ago on November 17, 2020, the rolling one-week average of daily recorded new COVID-19 infections in California was 8979. Now three weeks after Thanksgiving, a one-day record of 63,817 new COVID-19 cases in California was set this week on Wednesday.



I don’t think anyone wants to spend the holidays with an order that lasts until January 7, 2021 to Stay at Home for all but essential services, but this is where we are. And, if ICU bed availability doesn’t head back over 15%, we could be looking at an extension of that Stay at Home order.



There is only one City meeting in the coming week on Monday. Winter Holiday scheduling has begun. City reduced service days wrap around the Christmas and New Year’s Holidays beginning on December 24, 2020 and continuing through December 31, 2020. Normal schedules resume January 4, 2020. The City Council Winter Recess lasts until January 18, 2021, although there will be an Agenda Planning meeting on January 4, 2021.



Monday, December 21, 2020

Ashby and North Berkeley BART Community Advisory Group (CAG), 5:30 – 6:30 pm

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/bartplanning/

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/99362165873

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 993 6216 5873

Topic: Community Outreach and Engagement for Community Meeting #2

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Land Use

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals

0 (2435) San Pablo (group living) ZAB - 1/21/2021

1915 Berryman (Payson House) LPC – 1/21/2021

1850 Arch (add bedrooms) ZAB – 1/26/2021

1862 Arch (add bedrooms) ZAB – 1/26/2021

Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with End of Appeal Period

2708 Ellsworth 1/4/2021

1262 Francisco 1/4/2021

460 Michigan 12/22/2020

1921 Oregon 12/22/2020

2422 Oregon 1/4/2021

1212 Queens 1/4/2021

1828 San Juan 1/4/2021

260 Southampton 1/4/2021

1500 Tyler 1/4/2021

99 The Plaza 1/4/2021

1311 Ward 1/4/2021

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications_in_Appeal_Period.aspx



LINK to Current Zoning Applications https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications.aspx

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WORKSESSIONS

Feb 16 - BMASP/Berkeley Pier-WETA Ferry, Systems Realignment

March 16 – Capital Improvement Plan (Parks & Public Works), Digital Strategic Plan/FUND$ Replacement Website Update, Update Zero Waste Priorities

May 18 – date open for scheduling



Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations

Cannabis Health Considerations

Berkeley Police Department Hiring Practices (referred by Public Safety Committee)

Ballot Measure Implementation Planning

Pedestrian Master Plan



Removed from Lists

Update Berkeley’s 2020 Vision

Undergrounding Task Force Update – Will be presented as Information Item

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