Public Comment

_{Before going on to the meetings of the week, first: Why did Measure L lose?} 

_{The yes-on Measure L campaign certainly didn’t lose through lack of funding. Donations to pass Measure L are now over $400,000, if my addition is correct, while No on Measure L is a little over $30,000. Most donations to No on L were in the $100 to $250 range. The few listed as $1200 pale in the shadow of Yes on Measure L donations, with $10,000 after $10,000 after $10,000.}  

_{You can see the list for yourself; just go to the City of Berkeley Portal https://public.netfile.com/pub2/?aid=BRK and type: Measure L in “Search By Name” and click on “search” (no other blocks need to be filled).} 

_{Berkeley City Council, Council committees, boards and commissions generally operate in the bliss of a city that pays more attention to national politics than the actions of city elected and council appointees. This time that bliss of inattentive residents was not enough to slide through the $650 million dollar Measure L bonds, even with a normally kneejerk generous community and $400,000 of funds to fill our mail boxes with glossy card stock Yes on L flyers.}  

_{After listening to a lengthy discussion with a mix of people describing why they voted for or against Measure L, it came down to the same objections made by those who signed on to oppose Measure L:} 

_{Measure L was poorly written. It was too ill-defined, too big, too expensive. There were no named projects. The promise of oversight didn’t hold water, with the City’s poor track record of providing the necessary information to the commissions to perform their oversight responsibilities in regards to existing ballot measures.}  

_{One person took a slightly different view, citing inflation and the possible loss of Proposition 13 homeowner protections, but that doesn’t explain why Berkeley’s Measure L lost and Oakland’s similar but incrementally better written Measure U sailed through with 71% approval.}  

_{It is interesting that the Yes vote on Measure L is, so far, right on target with the voter survey results from Lake Research Partners, reported to the Berkeleey City Cuncil May 31, 2022. The survey results showed voters favored a split between a parcel tax for streets and a $300 million dollar bond. Only 57% of the surveyed voters supported a $600 million bond. But instead of using the survey results and listening to the voters, this Mayor and City Council dug in and decided to go for an even bigger bond. And because of mistakes in the financial calculations of the cost to property owners, the period of the bonds was placed at 48 years.} 

_{Since it appears that some people were counting on passing Measure L to advance to the next step on their political ambition ladder, we can expect at least one of those “some people” to throw blame for losing around, instead of looking inward at their responsibility for creating this debacle.} 

_{None of us who signed on to oppose Measure L disagreed that there are significant infrastructure needs. What we saw is a mayor, council and city manager that could not be trusted with a big slush fund and no defined projects.}  

_{The Housing Element of Berkeley’s General Plan was on the Berkeley Neighborhoods Council Agenda at its November 12th meeting. There is continued frustration with the RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) allocation to Berkeley with inflating the goal for the number of new housing units to 19,098 from 8,934 for the planning purposes, purported to reach the assigned 2446 very low income and 1408 low income and 1416 moderate income units. That would mean saddling Berkeley with an excess of 10,164 units of new market rate housing, tearing down older structures and adding more 8-story residential buildings towering over little one-story houses, as will happen again with 1598 University.}  

_{Since Measure M (tax on vacant housing) passed, maybe one day Berkeley will see revenue from vacant market rate units.} 

_{It is the same story heard over and over at the Berkeley Neighborhoods Council meetings, the late discovery that Berkeley zoning codes and state density bonuses mean big tall projects backing up to your lot line and your little house. 1598 University is an SB 330 project so it will likely shlide through with little change. The neighbors can thank State Senator Nancy Skinner for this streamlined approval process that allows only a maximum of five city meetings and is a near guarantee that new groups of neighbors will have a mixed-use tower next door. The appeal of 2018 Blake, a middle of the block 6-story residential project, comes back again to Council Tuesday evening.} 

_{The Planning Department staff stated publicly that the choice of the 19,098 number was to drive changing Berkeley’s zoning codes. The push to turn Berkeley into a dense Manhattan style city continues.}  

_{The Planning Department seems to have realized that they actually need to meet the state submission deadlines for the Housing Element (the plan for where to put these new units), so we can all expect more lengthy reports to read with insufficient time to digest the content. Requirements of the Housing Element and building housing for UCB students are the drivers for changing zoning codes and suggesting that there should be a Berkeley density bonus for bigger, taller buildings in the southside area next to campus that don’t require inclusionary affordable housing.}  

_{As written previously, the Planning Department contends that it is too difficult to determine student financial status, and since the Southside is planned to be for student housing, developers should be awarded density bonuses to build bigger taller buildings if they pay a fee. That proposal will come back to the Planning Commission at a future meeting.} 

_{In December, after the year-end financial reports are completed, the Council makes adjustments to the budget. The process is called AAO (Annual Appropriations Ordinance) #1. This is when previously denied budget requests are reconsidered along with new requests. Interestingly, only the City Manager’s requests were listed with the reports at the Thursday morning Council Budget and Finance Committee meeting, and none of the councilmembers’ requests were listed. When Mayor Arreguin asked about this omission, it was promised by staff to be added at the next round.} 

_{Some things stood out in the preliminary reports.} 

_{For example, why do we have homeless people on the street when there’s a year-end balance of $19,513,097 under Measure P – the fund the voters approved for homeless services in 2018?}  

_{Another question: with the City website such an abysmal mess with historical data stashed in impossible-to-find Records Online, why is the IT (Information Technology) budget under-spent by 30%?} 

_{The Berkeley Police Department (BPD) always is over budget, and it was again. The reason given was a shortage of officers necessitating mandatory overtime. There was no answer to my question during public comment: With all these shortages, was BPD still sending an officer to park in front of the Apple store? It was after the meeting I received this link that states that Berkeley spent $243,023 per police position in 2022. https://www.thecentersquare.com/california/as-berkeley-struggles-with-police-costs-14-cops-made-over-300-000/article_0e615650-5b8b-11ed-83fd-f79e2d55fb0a.html}  

_{Thursday evening was the North Berkeley BART Station developer candidates’ presentations. It was initially listed as four candidates, but two were eliminated before the meeting, leaving not-for-profit BRIDGE and RCD, each with its companion for-profit developer. They both did their self-promotion presentations.}  

_{The public was asked to submit questions in advance or at the meeting on cards or on zoom.}  

_{Below are the questions from the North Berkeley Neighborhood Alliance that did not get asked by the BART meeting moderator. Maybe they will come up at the BART meeting on Objective Standards this coming Wednesday, November 16 at 7 pm.} 

• _{What is the largest size project that your lead partner has been directly responsible for developing and building?}
• _{What is your view of what the area around the North Berkeley BART station should be like, looking out 10-20 years?}
• _{If you are chosen to sign an exclusive negotiating agreement with BART, you will then have a vested right to the zoning (per AB 2923) - what development rights do you believe that gives you?}
• _{Have you ever been involved in a project that provides you a vested right to the site's zoning upon signing a negotiating agreement with the agency that owns the land?}
• _{How do you see the affordable housing component of this project fitting into the actual site plan at North Berkeley?}
• _{What experience do you have and what approach will you take toward having a significant part of the development at North Berkeley provide for substantial "missing middle" housing?}
• _{The area around North Berkeley BART (for over a half mile radius) is primarily made up of 50'x150' lots with single homes, duplexes and small apartments - how will your project integrate into this community fabric?}
• _{What commitments will you make to what level of community engagement in the design process, given that BART and AB 2923 greatly limit the requirement for any such engagement?}
• _{Will you rule out right now building any structure taller than seven stories at North Berkeley BART?}
• _{Why do you think that the financial marketplace for development (and the present supply chain/inflation circumstances) will be favorable for any type of project at North Berkeley BART within 10 years?}
• _{If there were no AB 2923 requirements, what type of project would you think most appropriate to build at North Berkeley BART?}

_{Davis and Sacramento are listed as two of the top cities in the nation with the largest number of net-zero housing projects, but none of that has spilled over to Berkeley. There are two net-zero projects I’ve been watching 303 Battery in Seattle by Sustainable Living Innovations https://sli.co/ (our goal is mid-size – 7 stories) and Soleil Lofts in Herriman, Utah.}  

_{As an FYI here is A Technical Guide to Zoning for AB 2923 Conformance which defines the broad parameters for the BART housing projects.} 

_{https://www.bart.gov/sites/default/files/docs/02_AB2923_TechGuide_Draft_Appendix2.pdf} 

_{Not enough happened at the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission or the Peace and Justice Commission to take up space. Double and triple scheduling of meetings meant I missed the Personnel Board meeting, the Housing Advisory Commission, and the Police Accountability Board. I did attend the E-Bike webinar, with an over-the-top E-Bike enthusiast as the presenter, but had to sign off to attend the BART meeting before they covered pricing and discounts. We really need more people attending and reporting on city meetings so nothing gets passed over.} 

_{It was October 11, 2022 that the Berkeley City Council adopted item 19. “Land Acknowledgement Recognizing Berkeley as the Ancestral, Unceded Home of the Ohlone people.” with councilmember Hahn as the author and co-sponsors Arreguin, Taplin, Robinson. It is another tiny step forward for indigenous people, but looming over this well-intended motion is the Supreme Court, which is poised to take a hacksaw to the Indian Child Welfare Act and federal Indian law.}  

_{For those of us who listen to Democracy Now, Thursday morning we heard about the Supreme Court and Haaland v. Brackeen, “a case challenging the Indian Child Welfare Act and ultimately threatening the legal foundations of federal Indian law. ICWA was created in 1978 to address the systemic crisis of family separation in Native communities waged by the U.S. and requires the government to ensure foster children are adopted by members of their Indigenous tribes, as well as blood relatives, before being adopted by non-Indigenous parents. Now right-wing groups are supporting white foster parents to challenge the law as discriminatory. ‘Not only are our children on the line, but the legal foundation, the legal structure that defends the rights of Indigenous nations in the United States is literally at stake,’ says journalist Rebecca Nagle, who has been reporting on the case for years and says it’s likely the Supreme Court will strike ICWA down.” https://www.democracynow.org/2022/11/10/haaland_v_brackeen_indian_child_welfare} 

_{How We Go Home: Voices from Indigenous North America by Sara Sinclair isn’t an easy read. The book is a narrative from twelve Indigenous People in the United States and Canada and their individual struggles for identity and place in the frame of discrimination, bullying, poverty, drugs, alcohol, coerced residential and boarding schools, foster care, forced assimilation, loss of family, and on top of everything failure of the United States to fulfill Indian treaty agreements.}  

_{How We Go Home from the oral history project Voice of Witness, provides a look into the past and present we need to know.}  

_{Justice Gorsuch comes from the United States Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals encompassing six states: Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming and the territory of 76 federally recognized Indian Tribes. Justice Gorsuch has decided a number of cases in favor of tribal sovereignty. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/vol--43/vol--43--no--1/justice-gorsuch-and-federal-indian-law/} 

_{As noted in the podcast Strict Scrutiny https://crooked.com/podcast/the-uncertain-future-of-the-indian-child-welfare-act/, the Indian Tribes worked with Justice Gorsuch during his tenure in the Tenth Circuit.}  

_{The question remains, will Justice Gorsuch pull one more to support LCWA? From the descriptions of the questioning and comments of the Supreme Court hearing, Justice Thomas will definitely decide with the plaintiff against LCWA, Justice Kavanagh is a probable against LCWA and Chief Justice Roberts is always on the side of dismantling anything that whiffs of protections for minority groups. That leaves Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was not mentioned in any reviews as the swing vote.}