Extra

I start out each week committed to writing up meetings as they occur only to end the weekend scrambling to finish the diary before the next week starts.

Elmar from Public Works related at the Telegraph/Channing Restroom Community meeting on Monday the challenge of finding a flat location for the Portland Loo and settled on two possible sites. The Portland Loo is a stand-alone pre-fabricated public restroom with a flushable toilet and an external hand-washing station https://portlandloo.com/

One of the two sites is at Haste and Telegraph in the street in front of the mural “A Peoples History of Telegraph Avenue” on the Amoeba Music building. With the Loo’s substantial height of 8 ½ feet and length 10 ½ feet it would obstruct the view of this classic mural designed by Osha Neumann, painted with O’Brien Thiele, Janet Kranzberg, David Galvez and many others in 1976. The mural was enlarged in 1999 and most recently restored in 2020. https://berkeleyplaques.org/plaque/telegraph-avenue/

The other location on Channing just west of Telegraph was met with resistance by Framer’s Workshop. The Framer’s Workshop owners envision that the plumbed public restroom would be a magnet for flies that would find their way down to the Framer’s Workshop entrance like flies from the porta potty that was once near their business. This location also has a mural, but the considerably smaller mural is on a two-story wall and does not possess the historical recognition given to “A Peoples History of Telegraph Avenue.”

If there is absolutely no other location, my vote is for the Channing site and saving the History of Telegraph Avenue Mural. Osha Neumann is probably more widely known by council and city employees for defending the homeless than for his mural art. I hope that doesn’t influence a city decision. I emailed ugonzalez@cityofberkeley.info If you wish to voice your opinion on the location of the Portland Loo then email ugonzalez@cityofberkeley.info by 6 pm TODAY, Monday October 11. I will also will try emailing the Director of Public Works, Liam Garland. 

Last Monday evening was the first Peace and Justice Commission meeting since the beginning of the pandemic. The council referral, the Rights of Nature, a new concept to most people, was the last agenda item at a meeting that was already hitting the wall, an inopportune time to take up a complicated concept that few understood. https://www.invisiblehandfilm.com/what-are-rights-of-nature/ 

Commissioner Rita Maran, appointed by Linda Maio in 2016, was completely opposed to any rights given to nature, convinced that nature would reverse the hard fought human rights. The explanation given by George Lipmann did not touch on how the Rights of Nature has been the legal path to stop the polluting of rivers, clean up the mess and assign damages. These are the very things that cause death and devastating illness, not just to animals and ecosystems, but also to people, most often Black and Indigenous People Of Color (BIPOC(.. 

In 2008, Ecuador was the first nation to give rights to nature when it ratified Articles 71-74 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, granting the environment the inalienable right to exist, persist and be respected. It was a battle before and ever since. Some may recall the 2013 decision against Chevron with a fine of $9.5 billion, which Chevron has refused to pay. 

Here in Berkeley, the Rights of Nature has been a bumpy road as I noted in the April 3, 2021 Activist’s Diary. Mayor Arreguin boxed himself into a corner when he declared his opposition to the rights of nature at the agenda committee and needed a way out. The path became the Peace and Justice Commission referral where it will be tied up for months until the commission is merged and it dies. A fuller story is here: https://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2021-04-03/article/49114?headline=A-Berkeley-Activist-s-Diary--Kelly-Hammargren 

This leads into my personal transformation and broader view. It was the 2018 IPCC interim report on holding temperature rise to 1.5°C and the February 2019 Guardian article “Plummeting insect numbers threaten the collapse of nature” that shook me out of any remaining complacency. Earlier this year, hungry for something different to read, I picked up the Nature of Oaks by Douglas Tallamy at Pegasus. I followed that with his earlier book Bringing Nature Home. It was Douglas Tallamy that carried me out of, “what is the big deal about native plants” to “this is so easy” we can restore nature and ecosystems one yard, one garden at a time. All we need is to replace our imported exotic plants with native plants. And, if we don’t have yards and gardens we can make room for pots of native plants. 

Douglas Tallamy was interviewed on KPFA Friday, October 8^th at 1 pm (Interview starts at 5 minutes and speed is adjustable – I do 1.25) https://kpfa.org/player/?audio=365520. Tallamy is so positive. He is speaking in-person in San Rafael on October 27^th at 7 pm https://dominican.extendedsession.com/douglas-tallamy/. If you miss all those, my favorite video is Douglas Tallamy in Lancaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwJbP0yA0gc 

This brings us to FITES, Thursday’s Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment and Sustainability Committee and Councilmember Taplin’s Native and Drought Resistance Plants and Landscaping Ordinance referral. It definitely felt like a set-up when Councilmember Robinson invited city arborist Dan Gallagher and Parks Director Scott Ferris to speak and then followed the invitation with a chat that they could meet offline. Taplin was absent. Robinson has expressed little interest in trees in prior meetings except as a nuisance (trees get in the way of biking), and the city arborists don’t believe in native plants and trees, as illustrated by non-native trees being planted throughout the city including at the restored North Berkeley Senior Center. 

Tuesday evening was the special council meeting to vote on the waiver of the Sanctuary City Ordinance for the $6.5 million lease of police radio equipment with Motorola. Council justified not getting competitive bids bringing up a problem Oakland had with another equipment provider some 7 years ago. Setting aside the issues raised by Motorola Solutions contracting with ICE, it still seems $6.5 million is an awfully large contract to skip the step of a competitive bid. The other agenda item, Interim Regulations proposed by the Police Accountability Board (PAB), passed with amendments and deferring how testimony is taken until the required legal process is completed. Taplin’s substitute motion to require witnesses to have permission to make a complaint was rejected. The PAB meets Wednesday, October 13 at 7 pm with Interim Regulations on the agenda. 

The Land Use Policy committee met Thursday on Taplin’s Affordable Housing Overlay. It was quite surprising how little Taplin had to say about the measure he submitted. Councilmember Hahn in her usual manner carried on and on and modified some of the language, but essentially it passed out of committee with little change, and the motion was ready when they realized they had completely ignored public comment. Of course, public comment had no influence on what was already in the works. 

You didn’t miss anything by skipping the council’s Public Safety Committee. Both agenda items, including the Automated License Plate Readers budget referral from Councilmember Taplin with co-sponsors Wengraf and Droste, were continued to a future meeting without action. 

If you watched the Mayor’s town hall you can tell your conspiracy minded friends in Berkeley that the reason they haven’t yet contracted COVID-19 isn’t because of Ivermectin and/or whatever other questionable stuff they put in their mouths, it is because 93% of us (those of us eligible for vaccination) in Berkeley did fulfill our civic duty, accepted responsibility to protect our own health and theirs and got vaccinated. 

I started Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America by Sarah Kendzoir as an audiobook, but there is so much research and information going back to money laundered Russian cash purchases of Trump Tower condos in the 1980s that this is better as a book in hand or ebook. It is mind-boggling just to track all the corruption and interconnections. The book hits hard on Mueller and the Mueller report, disappointing as it was, but is still worth reading. The tell-all books and even revelations from the judiciary committee are a soft touch compared to the scathing indictment from Kendzoir.