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This was an ugly week in so many ways, with occasional bright spots. It finished with the flickering of lights, howling wind and then nothing but darkness at midnight Friday. 

We lost on getting voting rights passed, thanks to Senators Sinema and Manchin, but the nooses around the Trump business , the Trump family and layers of the planned coup, including the “former guy”, looked to be getting tighter. It is hard to tell if we will come out of the divide between those of us who want to live in a multi-cultural democracy and those driven by maintaining White supremacy with autocracy bellowed across airwaves and social media as the answer. Of course, the lust for power, conspiracies, greed and cultish adoration for Donald Trump is right at the center of it. 

The risks at hand should never be underestimated. Some of us are still on pins and needles wondering if the Department of Justice will step up to the plate. 

The biggest unpleasant redistricting surprise in Berkeley was that an open house to present the new redistricting draft maps was announced sometime late last Friday to be held the following day, (Saturday, January 22, 2022) at the Northbrae Church from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Included in the post was the announcement of a second in-person open house at the South Berkeley Senior Center on Monday,January 24, from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm. 

Just why such an announcement would go out late Friday needs some explanation. One would think that such planning had been in the works for more than a few hours on Friday. And, it certainly deserves more than popping up on the community calendar. The email string about which I received from a neighbor started at 20:31 or 8:31 pm on Friday night. 

I can say this week that I am again made dizzy this time looking at the four draft redistricting maps, so I made a chart of each and added the descriptions of the neighborhoods compiled by BCA (Berkeley Citizens Action – an organization familiar with neighborhood identities). The distribution of race and renters and home owners in each proposed map is quite interesting. 

Regardings the four draft maps (Amber, Blue, Maroon, Orange): Two create a second student district instead of just one. And to create those second student districts, the Blue and Maroon maps drive a spear into District 4, the district I live in. District 7, represented by incumbent Councilmember Rigel Robinson, is the current student super majority district. In the draft Blue and Maroon maps, District 4 is gerrymandered into two of the draft versions to create a second student district. 

For a little refresher, there was such an uproar over the redrawing of the council districts after the 2010 census that Berkeley residents successfully gained signatures for a referendum. The whole mess after months of wrangling was finally settled in December 2014. 

This time, with efforts to create a second student district at the expense of existing neighborhoods, one has to ask if this would fall under the prohibition in Line (k) of the California elections code: 

“(k) The commission shall not draw districts for the purpose of favoring or discriminating against a political party or an incumbent or political candidate.” 

Besides being a hit on District 4, adding a second student district panders to a group that hasn’t shown much interest in local elections, if one looks to the turnout for 2018. I couldn’t find the percent of registered voters or voter eligible residents in each district for 2018, but looking at the total votes cast in Berkeley election history District 7 had a pretty poor showing, with only 2,795 votes cast compared to District 1 (7,845), District 4 (5,447) and District 8 (6,523). 

Consider that districts were drawn to relatively equal populations, and in that student population there wouldn’t be many children under the age of 18 living with their voting age parents to dilute the number of eligible voters. District 7 also had the lowest voter turnout in 2020. 

If the Blue and Maroon maps are thrown out, that leaves us with the Amber and Orange maps. 

The Amber map is closest to existing districts with corrections to reunite neighborhoods that were divided in 2014. The Orange map creates a unified waterfront, West Berkeley District. We need to hear from West Berkeley residents regarding their preference between being split between Districts 1 and 2 or being united. 

The Orange and Amber maps are also the most reasonable acknowledgement of the high fire danger areas in the hills. The majority student district is maintained. Keeping District 4 together in the Amber and Orange maps maintains a vital healthy mix there. 

The drop-dead date to finalize the new district map is March 16, 2022. That may sound like a long way off, but that day will be here in a flash. The time to get involved is right now. The next Independent Redistricting Commission meeting is this coming Thursday, January 27 at 6 pm. You can review the draft maps at https://redistricting-commission-berkeley.hub.arcgis.com/ (use the IRC Public Meetings button for meeting links or go to the Activist’s Calendar). 

All of this brings us to the next question: Why did Mayor Arreguin decide to schedule a special meeting, the council work session on TOPA (Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act), at the very same time as the Independent Redistricting Commission meeting? This looks very much like a deliberate act to dilute the response to TOPA by splitting concerned citizens between TOPA and redistricting. There wasn’t even a whiff of a special meeting on TOPA at the last Agenda and Rules Committee meeting, where dates of work sessions were reviewed. All of this leaves a very unpleasant taste. 

For a little good news, the council voted on January 18^th to maintain the Zero Waste Commission as a single free-standing commission and to merge just two commissions, Community Environmental Advisory Commission and the Energy Commission, into the new Climate and Environment Commission. The council also voted to reject merging the Community Health Commission and the Sugar Sweetened Beverage Panel of Experts. On the first round of votes for the two measures Councilmembers Droste (who authored the merging) and co-sponsors Kesarwani and Robinson voted for the mergers (3 to 6) as they proposed. When they failed to gain support, they came around to vote with the majority in a final 9 to 0. 

At the Land Use Committee meeting on Thursday, it was revealed that Councilmember Taplin’s proposal to streamline toxic remediation at manufacturing sites was for the benefit of the Pacific Steel Casting Company site in West Berkeley. Pacific Steel closed in 2017, and the site, which has toxic contamination, has been dormant. I am not privy to who and what is planned for the takeover of this site, but I have been watching the push to undo the West Berkeley Plan with protections for artists. 

Anyone who is concerned about living over or spending considerable time at work on top of a capped toxic site in an area like West Berkeley, with sea level rise and ground water not far below, should watch the presentation by Kristina Hill, associate professor at UC Berkeley, at the beginning of the Sea Level Rise and Shoreline Contamination Regional Workshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM4YydPBV3A . The response by Grant Cope from the State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in the panel at the end of the second day should also be noted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAqnKY9dx6U 

There was another double scheduling of meetings on Thursday evening, but this was a conflict that has no nefarious undertones, just too much going on at once. I started off with Reimaging Public Safety Community Meeting for Districts 3 and 4 and then left to watch the City Council’s special meeting on infrastructure. 

The Reimagining Public Safety Community meeting was up to 26 total participants at one point and then dropped to 23 before I left. Of that total, I counted seven co-hosts all associated with the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) and recognized two city staff names. I called around the next day to see if I missed anything and heard these comments, “if you want to get out of the decision you hire consultants to do it” and another describing the presenters as sounding like “androids reading from their report” and the content as “capitalism run amok.” Maybe these comments made public will improve the next community meeting scheduled for February. 

I was asked to review a book on policing, the 3^rd edition of Walking with the Devil: The Police Code of Silence by Michael W. Quinn, 2016. Not having power for nearly all of Saturday really set me behind. You will read more about that next week after adding my observations from the Reimaging Public Safety Task Force discussion and critique of the NICJR Report this coming Monday evening meeting. 

Review and discussion of the movie “Don’t Look Up” are popping up everywhere including in the PBS Newshour on Thursday evening. It is a must see. If you don’t have Netflix , sign-up or find a friend with Netflix. 

As I listened in darkness to the howling wind, I kept thinking this is what the future of climate catastrophe brings. I was lucky with the thousands of others without power that it wasn’t 10° or eventlasting days without safe drinking water and all else that can run amok with loss of power. Even though this weekend ended brightly, we need to face what’s ahead. Climate is the comet headed straight at us. 

Our continued inaction and denial will leave our children, grandchildren and the next generations with an earth that is uninhabitable. Already we are living through superstorms and climate refugees are converging on country borders worldwide. There will be more, and that brings us to our book club selection for January The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where We Go from Here by Hope Jahren, 2020. 

Jahren has a wonderful way of pulling together the story of more of everything not with hammering us with dismal portrayals of the future, but instead describing where we are and giving us much to think about. The first comments in book club were how they loved the book. We each had chapters that grabbed us. I loved the chapter on aquafarming – fish and energy including moving around. 

The Story of More is available at the library. This is one case where I liked the book so much, I bought a copy.