Extra

Exciting news! In this Climate Emergency Report I’m going to explain how the City Council can invest in the Marina to achieve the dream of a commuter ferry and long term robust infrastructure. [ Editor’s note: Sarcasm alert! This is the first of several sarcastic observations to be found in this piece. Watch for it. Don't get fooled!]

But first, let’s look at why this comes up.

The only action item of note this week comes from the Parks and Waterfront commission, chaired by former District 8 City Council member Gordon Wozniak.

The commission proposes, in short, empty and annoying budget shenanigans. Namely, they propose that revenues from certain voter approved general taxes be placed in a “special fund” reserved for maintenance of the Marina and provision of Marina operations. 

It all sounds very plausible and much like the measure U1 rent tax – general funds that are somehow specially reserved. 

One small problem: legally, there ain’t no such thing. Pure and simple. What do these lies really do? They add to the accounting burden of the City Manager and fiscal management staff. And they let politicians pretend to dedicate certain funds while, in reality, they don’t make one single penny of funds available or raise a budget whether for housing or the Marina. They just force the City Manager to shuffle how various existing spending is charged, while continuing to use all the U1 (and Marina transient occupancy tax) as… general revenues, unreserved, useful for any government purpose. 

This lie has been going on for years now. It was at the heart of the Measure U1 campaign, and the elected people and other well known campaigners for U1 know this and get very angry when you point it out to their face. They don’t offer any kind of rebuttal, mind you. They don’t have one. That’s why they get angry. 

So, unsurprisingly, the recommendation from the policy and rules committee is “no action”. You’ll get a sense on Tuesday at how much the U1 proponents and YIMBYs are still willing to lie about these bookkeeping shenanigans. 

Saving the Marina is easy, though. 

The main threat is the unexpected rapidity with which land-based ice is melting and raising sea level. Sea level rise is very likely to wipe out the Marina and most of the land around it. That will itself be a catastrophe simply because it will submerge much of the toxic landfill on which people, for some reason, like to frolic. 

But there’s a solution! From UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design professor and researcher Daniella Hirschfeld, we’re advised to dredge the bay to surround the existing shoreline with one farther out—to build levees. She even has suggested these could be used for a real estate boom since it would provide new land (well, levees dredged from the Bay) on which to build housing. Gosh. 

As a happy happy side effect this would protect the primary commuter highways in the inner Bay Area from permanent inundation so that there would still be a reliable car option for all those new commuters. 

And if you buy that plan, well, here’s a harmonious one for the Marina: 

Those levees will have to extend far out, to keep room for the anticipated ferry dock. And, since the Bay water level will be high, that of the Marina will be dry enough to walk around at, but still below sea level. 

Berkeley’s special need—which it will likely need to help pay for--is therefore a big lock, crossing the dredged up levees. 

Berkeley will need money for that. The big lock, crossing the giant dredged-up Bay-lining levees. You know, the levees with all the condominiums on them. 

How all this can be built fast enough to allow all fossil fuel supplies around here to reach near zero in eight or so years isn’t really important, I’ve learned from council. Think big. Think outside the box. Let’s withhold judgment until we’ve heard the latest proposal for crypto-currency-as-fundraising from Councilmember Bartlett, for example. I am looking forward to “Berkeley Marina toy boat coin” and its initial public offering. 

As far as I can tell in reality, most Berkeleyans alive today are likely to witness the inundation of the Marina within their lifespans, as their failure to take the climate emergency seriously accelerates the planetary foundation of our global civilization out from under us all in the same breath. 

There is nothing on Tuesday’s City Council agenda that suggests any member of City Council is aware of, and takes seriously, the real existing climate emergency. 

Again.