Columns

If all the newspapers I subscribe to arrived as paper editions, my house might look like the one I entered as a nurse years ago with newspapers in a mound filling the living room to the ceiling and the bedroom where I found my patient so full of papers and magazines that I couldn’t see the size of the bed or the rest of the room. I miss daily newspapers in hand, but limit myself to just the Sunday paper to read and set aside for my parrot Zorro. It is interesting how older articles take on a different meaning and that is what happened when I pulled out Joe Matthews’ editorial on why City Councils should be bigger.

Now that we are giving our Mayor and City Council members pay raises, enlarging the Council has little appeal and less justification with one Councilmember per 15,000 residents. Besides, we have a readymade city structure with commissions to foster city engagement and new ideas. As I wrote last week Berkeley commissions provide significant contributions. They could still use a review of their mission statements, broader diversity, more complete minutes and encouragement to dispense with meeting rules when engagement of attendees is of benefit. The Agenda and Rules Committee announced on Monday that a special meeting will be called to discuss the Councilmember Droste’s proposal to reorganize and eliminate not quite half of the commissions. If saving money in the city budget was really the issue, there are a lot more places to look starting with consultants. Police overtime is supposed to be getting a hard look. 

Since the three members of the Agenda and Rules Committee, (Mayor Arreguin and Councilmembers Wengraf and Hahn) couldn’t see beyond the BDS Movement( Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to end Israel’s oppression of Palestinians) they voted for no action on The Right to Boycott resolution submitted November 28, 2020 by Cheryl Davila. It is unfortunate they didn’t see the broader issue. Maybe the Peace and Justice Commission can take this up as non-violent peaceful boycotts are an important part of free speech. 

Maybe these three members could tune into Democracy Now, https://www.democracynow.org/ 

more often. In all this chaos we’ve been living under, I certainly like the calm monotone of Amy Goodman although she almost broke out in laughter the day she reported on the Rudy Giuliani press conference in front of the Four Seasons Total Landscaping next to the Fantasy Island Adult Books and across the street from Philadelphia Crematories. 

A worthwhile commission that is likely safe from the reorganizing axe is the Youth Commission, composed of members between the ages of 12 and 25. Councilmember Rigel Robinson, who is signed on as a supporter of the commission reorganizing, extolled the work of the Youth Commission on Monday. The Youth Commission, just as in its title, addresses issues of youth. They did not make a final appointment of their representative to the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force and will be meeting Tuesday for that purpose. 

If you happened to notice that the three banners, BE YOU, YOU’RE OKAY, IT’S NOT A DUMB IDEA, by local artist Susan O’Malley that could be seen from Civic Center Park have disappeared, they are down for repairs of the bolts holding them and will go back up. Susan O’Malley, who was pregnant with twins, died suddenly. A painful loss to all. The little girls survived only a week. The banners are “temporary” which brings up another issue pointed out by the Civic Arts Commission Public Art Subcommittee on Friday, the amount of “red tape” needed to have a permanent art exhibit. 

The Community for a Cultural Civic Center (CCCC) continues to move along. The Civic Arts Commission Civic Center Visioning Subcommittee is taking up the uses of the Veterans Building and the Maudelle Shirek Old City Hall). They will meet this coming Wednesday. 

It is hard to stay focused on City meetings when the cloud of the January 6 attempted coup hangs over us and the safety and security of President elect Biden and Vice-President Harris in this transition, Inauguration and after is a constant worry. I keep thinking back to the book Caste and the Taylor Branch quote from page 352, “…if people were given the choice between democracy and Whiteness how many would choose Whiteness…” Stuart Stevens went further in his book It Was All a Lie to write that the Republic Party is the White party. Declare Racism as a Public Health Crisis, item 25 in Tuesday’s agenda does not feel like enough. 

We have made different ways of carrying ourselves through this pandemic and constant chaos. I will be relieved when the news gets boring and a calming voice takes over, but there will still be a lot to do. My love of reading was given an enormous boost during these months of sheltering and it’s not going away. I’ve barely started the Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder, but I did finish the Address Book by Dierdre Mask and The Color of Water by James McBride. Since nearly all my reading is loans from our fabulous libraries, I’ve started a journal to keep notes so I am giving proper credit to any quotes. 

The Address Book is a fascinating look at the implications of the absence and presence of a street address and the history that surrounds how addresses have been created. It’s a non-fiction book that is a lot lighter in content than my usual selections. There is a chapter on the homeless describing the complications encountered by not having an actual street address. Consider all the places where giving a street address is requested or required for example applying for a job or finding a place to live. Maybe this is a task for the Homeless Commission: to ensure that every homeless person who wants a real address is able to get one. 

Enough for one sitting.