Public Comment

Some years ago, Harry Brill told me that local politics weren’t very interesting , since the topic was just real estate. A lot has changed in the years in between then and now.

Real estate and land use are big issues. Those of us who care about open space, biodiversity, climate and urban habitat are horrified by state legislation to strip cities of local control over such factors. Add in the resolutions and ordinances coming from Berkeley’s own mayor and City Council these days. There are obvious disconnects when you’re discussing density, covering land with concrete, climate change and environmental impacts. Another real estate piece of the picture is the complete denial that deregulation of zoning brings on an investor feeding frenzy. If this isn’t enough add UC Berkeley’s plans.

The city meeting of the week with the highest video attendance was Tuesday’s special City Council meeting on the UC Berkeley Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) draft environmental impact report (DEIR). https://lrdp.berkeley.edu/environmental-review The deadline to respond to UC is this Wednesday, April 21 at 5 pm. One surprise: Why did the council wait until a week before the deadline for a presentation by staff and council comment and questions, when the LRDP 45 day review period started March 8?

 

It was obvious the Sophie Hahn had read the 1000 page document as she started through her list of comments. This was one time I really wanted to hear what she had to say, but the mayor cut her off to go to public comment. 

While many in the Zoom audience (there were over 70 logged in) spoke against the projects to build on People’s Park and to demolish rent controlled apartments on Walnut Street, everyone was reminded that public comments need to be sent directly to UC Berkeley by the authors. The email is planning@berkeley.edu with “Draft EIR Comments:2021 LRDP and Housing Projects #1 and #2” in the subject line. 

The list of deficiencies in the DEIR is long: The document has been described as 1000 pages of nothing. 

Here are some key points: Mills College is closing, but reuse of its campus by UCB was not considered in this plan; People’s Park as a historic resource and open space will be lost with 60 mature trees removed; rent controlled units in the building on Walnut will be sacrificed to build more expensive dorms; the impact of increased UCB enrollment is ignored; the DEIR considers only impact to UCB campusl not the adjacent community; demolition of existing structures is a given; there are no plans to return the archeological resources stolen and held by UCB to Native Americans though People’s Park (Strawberry Creek) was a major village site; UCB uses the City of Berkeley fire department services; the impact of building in high risk fire zones was not included; there is no fire evacuation plan; the addition of parking and traffic is unacceptable; there is no labor agreement for construction,. 

Monday afternoon was the Agenda and Rules Committee meeting, with the task of planning the April 27^th regular city council meeting. One item that didn’t receive any attention that should be on everyone’s radar is that reserving $40 million from Measure O bond funds for transit-oriented housing over the Ashby and North Berkeley BART station parking lots achieves only 35% affordable housing at each BART station. The agenda item says that a new community process and new bond measure would be needed to get above 35%. 

The most poorly attended meeting of the week was the Personnel Board on Monday evening. None of the job descriptions being reviewed were available to the public as the packet was sent only to board members and not posted. My comment was direct to the impropriety of not posting the job descriptions for the public. While I did receive a copy from Dana d’Angelo, Assistant Management Analyst, on the following day, it was too late to provide comment. The packet still is not posted for the public to read. 

Much to my surprise and disappointment not one person from the Police Review Commission (PRC) joined the meeting to comment on the Director of Police Accountability position. Of course, they hadn’t received a copy of the Director of Police Accountability job description, let alone notification it was up for review. The presence of someone from the PRC would have been helpful. From my reading there is a disconnect between the Director of Police Accountability and the Police Accountability Board. I wonder if anyone present had ever paid any attention to the PRC or the ballot initiative other than a dry reading. There were few questions and comments, altogether very unsatisfying. 

Probably many of us didn’t spend much time looking at our job descriptions until that work performance evaluation rolled along, but well done job descriptions do set the direction of work. They are also how we decide whether we want the job in the first place. LaTanya Bellow from the Human Resources Department told the board there were over 150 jobs with only one person in them. She was bringing to the board two generic job descriptions. These would replace all those inconvenient one person job descriptions. There was no review of what was being eliminated. The board suggested that a couple of responsibilities might be reordered and otherwise gave their rubber stamp of approval. 

As someone who wrote programs for state licensure, many job descriptions and held responsibility for hire and fire of employees, I think well done job descriptions are important. A better standard than the inconvenient number would consider whether the job was unique with special skill or knowledge requirements, was the description written without bias for or against any group, and does it still fit a job that may have evolved. It is no wonder why many of us are unhappy with performance of some of our city employees. Is generic the best we can expect? 

The last meeting for comment is the Open Government Commission on Thursday evening. For that meeting, “open” is not a term I would use. Former Mayor Shirley Dean had filed a Brown Act complaint on March 5, 2021 (see Activist’s Diaries March 6, March 20, March 28 and Packet-OGC/FCPC https://www.cityofberkeley.info/opengovermentcommission/ starting on page 24). 

Commissioner Janis Ching noted that the minutes of that meeting did not include the Commission’s discussion of calling a special meeting to review the complaints. The complaints arrived 13 days, not the required 14 days, before the Open Government Commission’s scheduled March 18^th meeting. Therefore, the complaints would not be reviewed prior to the special meeting called by the mayor to consider council action on the issues which were the subject of the complaints, land use zoning, including Resolution to End Exclusionary Zoning, and Quadplex Zoning. 

The special Open Government meeting was not called. The chair, Brad Smith, made that decision. The commission members were not notified of the decision, nor were they notified under what conditions the members of the commission could call a special meeting. I commented that all of this looked suspect when Chair Brad Smith was the appointee of Councilmember Lori Droste, who is the author of the proposals which were the subject of Mayor Dean’s Brown Act complaints. Smith was not present for the April 15 commission meeting. A majority of the commissioners voted to dismiss the complaints rather than perform side by side comparisons of the documents as requested by Commissioner Ching. 

I finished Twilight of the Elites by Chris Hayes. It was published in 2011. I wish the optimistic “twilight” in the title was true. One book that stands out from last year with the formation of the Republican America First Caucus is It Was All a Lie by Stuart Stevens. In summary, Stevens wrote the Republican party stands for nothing but white supremacy.