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New: A Berkeley Activist's Diary, Week Ending May 8
I remember reading when Donald Trump was elected in 2016, there were people around the world busy archiving documents, especially documents on climate, from U.S. government websites and storing the information outside of the country so it could be saved and retrieved.
For over the last year we have been hearing the City of Berkeley was developing a new updated website. We were blithely coasting along like any of the historical documents we might ever need would be there when we wanted.
Today I wanted to find documents from the Community Environmental Advisory Committee (CEAC). Because City Council dissolved CEAC, it is not a searchable choice in the “Records online,” the place we are supposed to go to in the new city website to find older documents.
Even current information is blocked. In preparing the Activist’s Calendar, the agenda for the Tuesday Closed Council session gave this message: 403 SORRY, PERMISSION DENIED. This is a first. In the past, the agenda items were listed. Closed Council meetings began with public comment on agenda items before going into closed session. This meeting is now cancelled.
Friday, I heard that City-employed legislative aides can’t find the documents they need. I guess there is some comfort that I am not the only one having problems with the acclaimed improved Berkeley City website. The pictures are attractive, and I expect some people love them and the new format. The format looks like it is easier for people who do business with the City, not those who are engaged in what the City is doing. Given the choice between colorful pictures and historical records, I’ll take the later.
The most complete accessible list of City of Berkeley meetings going back to July 17, 2017 may now rest in the Sustainable Berkeley Coalition website. https://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html I had started to remove old calendars last year, but fortunately I never had enough time to get past July 17, 2017. None of the links work, but at least it may help to know where to start looking when you submit your public records requests.
It is spring. Birds are nesting in trees, bushes and in protected spaces around our homes. A pair of mourning doves returned again this year to the eave above my porch. And, while we await the hatching and fledging of these clutches, birds are migrating over our heads to northern sites to mate and nest. Erin Diehm sent me this totally cool website https://dashboard.birdcast.info/
Type in any US county and the number of migrating birds pops up along with the species of birds and speed and height of their flight. Amazing!
This can be a reminder to be bird friendly. If you have a cat(s) keep them indoors, turn off outside lights especially any lights that shine up into the sky. Outdoor cats are the biggest killer of birds, and uplighting can be disturbing and confusing to migrating birds. Approach yard clean-up and tree trimming cautiously to avoid disturbing nesting birds. And last, choose native plants that support insects, especially caterpillars, and leave the chemicals on the shelf.
Two of three CalFalcons have hatched. You can watch hatch day Q&A at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKbk4bpHRPs
Nothing much happened at any of the City meetings this last week except at the special council meeting on re-imagining public safety Thursday evening.
The Peace and Justice Commission will continue working on their proposal/letter opposing the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a vision for a peaceful future. Councilmember Taplin’s measure on efficiency units at the Land Use Committee was postponed.
The Planning Commission received and commented on the Housing Elements presentation of potential sites for adding 8934 new housing units. No commission action was taken; however if you live backed up to San Pablo, University, Shattuck, Adeline, Telegraph, near the downtown or in the southside (around and south of UCB, the area bounded by Hearst on the north, MLK on the west, Dwight to Prospect on the south and Prospect on the east) expect a midsize mixed-use apartment building or taller to be your new neighbor. And, expect mixed-use building creep further into neighborhoods.
It is worth looking at the maps of targeted development areas in the presentation to the Planning Commission even if you expect your neighborhood to remain untouched. Pipeline means projects that are in review/process. https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2022-05-04_HE_PC_SitesPoliciesPrograms_PPT.pdf
As for what actually happened May 5th at the Special Reimagining Public Safety Council meeting here is the motion:
- To refer the budget process the City Manager’s Police restaffing proposal as presented in the City Manager Reimagining Public Safety Report. (181 positions, with 5 deferred)
- Refer to the budget process the proposed Dispatch positions in the amount of $926,710 (4 Dispatch Positions, 1 Supervisor)
- Refer to fully fund the Office of Race, Equity and Diversity in the amount of $479,540
- As part of permanent decision on an SCU [Special Care Unit] in FY 25-26 evaluate bringing the program internally within the City organization to be staffed by City of Berkeley staff, and also refer for consideration the the MIP launched by the Berkeley Fire Department, in addition to all other ideas.
What does this really mean? Hard to say. There is still the budget process, but overall it looks like more police, moving forward on a non-police mental health team (SCU) for people in a mental health crisis, staffing up dispatch for 911 and non-emergency calls and turfing, addressing racial bias, and systemic racism to a new department.
Dealing with racism on the job isn’t easy. As a new manager, I quickly learned that high levels of diversity in an organization/company does not guarantee acceptance and understanding. Diversity of the workforce does not make racist behavior, microaggressions magically disappear. Diversity is no guarantee for cross cultural and cross racial work relationships or evolving friendships.
The Mason Tillman Report and Center for Policing Equity Report identified racist practices and problems embedded in the City of Berkeley. Creating a new department, the Office of Race, Equity and Diversity is just a showcase unless supervisors, department heads, chiefs, all the way up to the City Manager, the mayor and councilmembers are willing to look at their own biases and step up to their responsibility to address and establish a no-tolerance for the behavior that comes with systemic racism. As long as racist behavior, microaggressions, racist practices in contracting are tolerated without action to end them, then no new number of departments or reorganizing will solve problem for them or us.
We are starting off the dry season with water in short supply, and nearly all of California in extreme drought or exceptional drought, the two worst categories. In the eternal let’s-build-and-ignore-availability-of-water, this article from the San Luis Obispo Tribune reports letters from California Coastal Commission to halt all new water-using development including housing development in Los Osos and Cambria. https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/environment/article260618467.html
In this Mother’s Day weekend with the pending end of Roe v. Wade heading the news, this Diary finishes with two books The Story of Jane the Legendary Underground Feminist Abortion Service by Laura Kaplan, 1995 reissued in 2019 (on backorder) and The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America by Thom Hartmann, 2019 (the ebooks and audiobooks for both are available at the San Francisco library).
The Story of Jane is more than how a group of women in Chicago evolved from making connections between women pleading for abortions and the doctors who provided them to learning how to perform abortions themselves. In its four-year history the members of Jane estimated they performed more than 11,000 abortions.
Kaplan writes of the pressure of meeting the needs of women desperate to end their pregnancies. Women called Jane from all walks of life, Black, White, rich, poor, married, single, women with and without children and all ages from young girls to middle age. The book lays bare the tensions of learning to perform abortions, personalities, leadership, families, partners and even the feminist organizations growing at the time. Kaplan describes women recognizing their potential and freedom to make their own decisions and the direction of their lives.
And who were the women of Jane? They were not wild-eyed revolutionaries dressed in motorcycle jackets and combat boots, they were Instead a group of ordinary women. Nick (everyone was given a pseudo name including the author) who taught the women how to perform abortions described them like this, “…they looked too normal, too straight, …This is really strange, all these straight women doing this illegal thing.”
California is poised to be a sanctuary for women, but this is a plan that can whither and fall with an uncertain future and a solid majority of five Supreme Court Justices staunchly in opposition to abortion and standing in the extreme right on other issues. This majority of five doesn’t need any other justices to push forward their agenda. As ultra-conservative state legislatures write and pass extreme laws prohibiting abortion everything is on the table as these laws work their way to the Supreme Court.
If you look at the Louisiana Department of Health https://ldh.la.gov/page/1036 you wouldn’t know that Louisiana legislators are advancing a bill that would make terminating a pregnancy a homicide.
In The Hidden History of the Supreme Court, Hartmann writes of Mitch McConnell seeing lifetime appointments of Federal judges as more important than legislation in shaping the power structure of the United States. The courts touch every aspect of our lives.
In Hartmann’s short book he chronicles the progression of the Supreme Court to its current state of “supreme” power legislating from the bench. Included are key decisions and descriptions of acts of treason by Presidents Reagan and Nixon. Hartmann describes how McConnell used his power to block President Obama’s appointments to Federal courts (not just Merrick Garland) leaving vacancies for lifetime appointments for President Trump to fill with young ultraconservative judges that will change the direction of the U.S. for years into the future.
As for my guess of who is the draft opinion leaker, my vote goes to Ginni Thomas wife of Justice Clarence Thomas. Ginni Thomas has already demonstrated her entanglement with conspiracy theories and all the necessary connections. Clerks have careers at risk that would make leaking come at a huge personal cost, but we shall see.
