Extra

One of the side benefits of the changes forced by the pandemic is that an international conference planned to take place in London could be watched live from home. I finished the week with attending the international virtual conference Half-Earth Day.

The Half-Earth Project® started with Edward O. Wilson and his premise that to save the bulk of biodiversity including ourselves, we need to conserve half the land and sea. https://www.half-earthproject.org/

Conserving half the earth for biodiversity is a laudable goal, one that sadly I don’t see going very far. For heaven’s sake we can’t even get developers to come to ZAB (Zoning Adjustment Board) and DRC (Design Review Committee) with a landscape plan that is predominantly locally native plants, or to install bird safe glass, or to stop planning patios with methane-burning firepits.

Calling methane “natural gas” doesn’t make it any less toxic to the environment or to your kitchen for that matter. And, all those projects in the works before the implementation of the natural gas ban in new construction passed by city council on July 23, 2019, can still do what they wish. ZAB (Zoning Adjustment Board) and DRC (Design Review Committee) can only request.

As for bird safe glass, nothing has changed since I last wrote. The bird safe glass ordinance passed by council on November 12, 2019, was referred to the Planning Commission where the ordinance languishes, second from the bottom of a long to-do list with no priority, awaiting Planning Commission approval. That is, before the ordinance takes a tour through the city manager’s office, and then it can be implemented.

I confess to being a bit cranky at DRC Thursday evening, when I started my first public comment with: Why do we, month after month, have to speak to the same issues, choosing native plants and bird safe glass? The two projects before DRC for final review Thursday evening have been in the works since 2016 and 2018. Speakers representing both projects, 2902 Adeline and 1951 Shattuck, insisted the fire pits were a desired amenity to keep. Cody Fornari, the developer and CEO of Realtex for 2902 Adeline, did not express even a whiff of interest in bird safe glass. 

The second project for final review was a twelve-story glass-dominant residential tower at 1951 Shattuck. It’s not clear when the property was sold to Grosvenor Americas, but the traditional style from 2014 went away with the new owner’s project design. 

A representative from the Audubon Society Board spoke to advocates for both projects on improving safety for birds. With the bird safe glass ordinance buried deep in the dark, the DRC could only request, not enforce, bird safe glass. The developer for 1951 Shattuck did say they were familiar with the San Francisco bird safe glass ordinance, and would be using glass with a film at the top of the building, and would be using a method to improve the safety of the glass railings on the balconies. None of the rest of the building would contain bird safe glass. 

A predominantly glass building with glass corners near trees and glass balcony enclosures is a real hazard for birds, as is reflective glass in low and mid-rise buildings. Somehow, I missed the full story: that Lux, one of the two peregrine falcons born at the UC Campanile in 2017, died slamming into glass in a balcony enclosure one week after it learned how to fly. 

At the end of the DRC meeting Charles Kahn asked DRC Secretary Anne Burns if there isn’t a list given to developers of the things that will come up in DRC meetings, like native plants and bird safe glass. Since there is no list and the topic of a list was not on the agenda, Kahn asked for consideration of making such a list to be added to the next meeting agenda. 

Berkeley could have a leading bird safe glass ordinance far better than the 2011 San Francisco ordinance, but like so much that seems to happen in this city, Mayor Arreguin finds a way to look progressive while actual action comes up empty. There are other cities and mayors to watch and candidates with real commitment for the future. Mayor Peduto of Pittsburgh, PA, led that city through passing Dark Sky legislation in August. 

Forty-two people attended the Tuesday evening City Council special meeting on the Berkeley Police Department (BPD) Crime Report. Since the meeting is virtual and the public can’t see who is logged in to Zoom, we can’t know if the reason for the small number of speakers is because most of the attendees were members of BPD or just members of the public who were there to listen and not speak. The presentation and video are all available online. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx. 

When Blacks are only 8% of the Berkeley population and 43.07% were subjected to use of force, while Whites are 50% of Berkeley population but logged as receiving only 26.22% of the incidences of use of force, it doesn’t look like much has changed in regard to biased policing. 

Arreguin took the lead in responding to the BPD presentation and public comment by stating at 1:27:12 in the meeting video that he wanted to address his concern about decreased police staffing, saying “that we’re seeing a huge decrease in staffing in the department…I believe that we can have adequate staffing in our police department…and we can invest in alternative responders that are being explored through the re-imagining process…I don’t think those are mutually exclusive…” 

Having attended many of the city Budget & Finance Policy Committee meetings, I can predict where the allocation to alternatives will end up after the BPD budget has been allocated. On something as important as re-imagining public safety, I would love to be surprised and proven wrong. 

The number of sworn officers is now at 152 which is 1 officer per 818 residents or 12.22 per 10,000 residents (2020 census). I was curious after the mayor’s statements just how Berkeley compares in the number of officers relative to population. What I found is that the number of officers per population across the nation is anywhere from 4.2 per 10,000 in Lincoln, CA, to 68.7 /10,000 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, though most listings in California vary from 9 to 14 per 10,000. San Francisco is a California outlier with 26.4. You could spend all night scrolling through this list https://www.governing.com/archive/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html Berkeley with a smaller population and more officers was at 14 when the chart was compiled. 

The Berkeley City Council approved a $270,000 contract with NICJR to oversee the community process for a re-imagining of public safety in Berkeley. I haven’t heard much of anything that is a “re-imagining.” There have been a lot of presentations from BPD seeming to defend what they already do, with not a speck that I can think of from attending task force meetings that points to alternative approaches (other than what comes out of the frustrated mouths of task force members). The NICJR final report will be completed any day now and turned over to the City Manager. It is unclear when the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force will see it, but we will know more after their next meeting at 5 pm on Wednesday. 

In the meantime, Criminal Injustice is an excel podcast on criminal justice reform and the law. I highly recommend the October 19, 2021 podcast. You might even want to take a tour through the archives. http://www.criminalinjusticepodcast.com/blog/2021/10/18/146-public-defense-and-criminal-justice-reform 

California seems to be in the throes of recall fever. Chesa Boudin, San Francisco District Attorney, is now on the block. Since I moved from San Francisco to Berkeley thirty-one years ago I haven’t been tracking San Francisco politics, but it was interesting to read in an SFGate analysis that San Francisco with 26.4 sworn officers per 10,000 (2016 count) solves only 10% of the crimes. In all the tallies and charts.g What percent of crimes are solved by BPD in Berkeley wasn’t part of the BPD Crime Report on Tuesday night. 

The Wednesday FITES (Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment and Sustainability) Committee meeting with the Native and Drought Resistant Plants and Landscaping Ordinance Referral on the agenda was canceled. 

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton is a book that should be on everyone’s reading list. It was on mine this week. Any sort of summary can’t do justice to the depth of the story of an innocent man living his adult life on death row. Our criminal justice system should give us a lot to think about. I read Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row a collection of essays by Tessie Castillo with contributions by: Michael J. Braxton, Lyle May, Terry Robinson, George Wilkerson, earlier this year. That book is a harder read. 

Maybe 2022 is the year I finally visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.