Public Comment

Monday feels like it was a month ago. There is so much to cover and I can’t take my eyes off the Israel – Hamas War and the genocide and domicide (destruction of housing) in Gaza. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/07/widespread-destruction-in-gaza-puts-concept-of-domicide-in-focus 

Monday evening the Rent Stabilization Board passed a ceasefire resolution in a 7 to 1 vote. Stefan Elgstrand, who works in Mayor Arreguin’s office, voted no on the ceasefire resolution after reading a statement that the resolution was outside the scope of the Rent Board in the City Charter and the Rent Stabilization Ordinance. Elgstrand did vote for the resolution to allow landlords to provide temporary, below-market rental housing in Berkeley for Palestinian, Israeli and Ukrainian refugees. Andy Kelley was absent.  

The Berkeley City Council is yet to act, but there has been some movement since the Tuesday evening council meeting.  

Councilmembers Rigel Robinson, Ben Bartlett and Terry Taplin all published their own versions of resolutions on the Israel-Hamas war on X (formerly twitter) on December 7, 2023. Bartlett and Robinson made it plain they were calling for a ceasefire. Taplin wrote “cessation of hostilities” instead of ceasefire, which makes it sound like there is a squabble back and forth.  

The death toll of Palestinians increases by hundreds daily. On Friday December 8, 2023 the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that 17,177 people including 7,112 children had been killed and 46,000 wounded since the Israeli-Hamas conflict started on October 7. In the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian death toll is 266 with 3,365 wounded. The Israeli army said that 1,147 people on the Israeli side have died including 418 soldiers.  

If the US suffered a number of deaths which was the same percentage of its population as Palestinians killed in Gaza in the two months since the Israel- Hamas War started we would have lost 2,542,368 people, of whom 1,056,480 are children killed and 68,160,000 wounded. This is not a squabble. We are watching a genocide: deliberate acts by the nation of Israel that appear to show the full intention to leave Gaza uninhabitable.  

What sticks in my mind is the September 22, 2023 Prime Minister Netanyahu address to the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) using a map of “The New Middle East”. Just fifteen days before the horrific attack by Hamas on Israel, Netanyahu gave a speech using a map of Israel from the river to the sea with an end to Gaza and the West Bank. https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map 

I cannot count six votes to get to get a resolution for a ceasefire on the Berkeley City Council agenda on December 12^th, nor can I get to five votes to pass a resolution. Now at least three councilmembers have formally posted a resolution. Harrison declared support for a ceasefire in an October 20 Facebook post.  

Councilmembers Rashi Kesarwani and Mark Humbert would have to stand in opposition to Mayor Arreguin for any resolution to pass. Unless Arreguin and councilmembers Sophie Hahn and Susan Wengraf move away from their published stands against a ceasefire resolution, this is going nowhere.  

This will make an interesting mayor’s race. Robinson, Hahn and Harrison are all running. In one of the many posts I have watched and heard is, “In November we will remember”.  

Today, December 8, 2023, the U.S. vetoed the UN security council’s decision calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The vote was 13 in favor, US against and the UK abstaining.  

On today’s Joe Scarborough show, the closest the show got to the horrific suffering in Gaza was to say the US is asking Israel to do more to protect civilians, President Biden is pressuring Netanyahu to let more aid into Gaza and the IDF is moving further into the southern part of Gaza on a mission to destroy Hamas. That was followed with an interview with a released hostage going back to her kibbutz being shocked by the destruction and delighted to find her cat.  

If Scarborough and like shows are someone’s only source of news, they would never know of the horror in Gaza.  

You will not hear on Scarborough that 1,900,000 Palestinians, 85% of the population in Gaza, are displaced, while just 30% of the Ukrainians have been displaced by the Russian invasion, or the sheer scope of destruction from the Israeli bombing of northern Gaza in just two months, turning whole neighborhoods into rubble. That news comes from science reported by journalism elsewhere. https://tinyurl.com/9wvux3k2  

The toll on journalists has been heavy. Sixty-three journalists and media workers have been confirmed killed, 56 Palestinians, 4 Israeli and 3 Lebanese.  

Mainstream news has always been from the pro-Israel perspective and there are still shows with that line, but younger anchors, more diverse anchors aren’t holding that line.  

My current book is from the Palestinian perspective. I’m just a third of the way through The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917 – 2017 by Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi one of the foremost historians on the Middle East writes from both archival research and family history which in my reading last night included a deep description of the Nakba. Palestinians were forced off their land, losing their homes, businesses, source of income and scattered into neighboring Arab countries without identity, passports, or papers. Families split as they fled. The Palestinians were expelled from the life they knew as their homes were turned into the new Jewish state.  

Back to the City of Berkeley..  

The council chambers were packed Tuesday evening with a determined crowd calling for a ceasefire. Nineteen of the twenty speakers allowed to speak on non-agenda items called for the Council to pass a resolution for a ceasefire. Only one spoke against a ceasefire.  

December 5 was the first meeting of the month, at which the council gives time to representatives of the unions to speak and speak they did. Jose Guerrero reported union workers are still waiting for back pay from PEPRA (Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act) amendment with the City. Unbelievable, this has been going on for more than two years. No wonder there are problems with filling positions. Then we heard from Andrea Mullarky speaking for SEIU 1021, representing 60,000 workers, that last month the executive board endorsed the movement of a ceasefire. Last, Julia Heath from Local 1 spoke about city action resulting in the loss of Liam Garland as Director of Public Works, a respected leader.  

At times the crowd was disruptive and the councilmembers took breaks, but they did not exit to conduct business in another room as in previous meetings. Watching from home on zoom, I saw that during breaks to regain order Taplin, Bartlett and Harrison could be seen speaking to attendees.  

Then the meeting went back to Public Comment on the Consent Calendar.  

Members of the public added their opinions on a ceasefire to agenda items. When it came to Taplin’s item 10 to name the Berkeley Pier after Nancy Skinner, speakers had plenty of alternate honorees to suggest: Gus Newport, the Ohlone People, moral courage, justice, ceasefire, the Gaza Palestine Pier, the brave journalists in Gaza who are reporting on the ground, Marek Edelman, the leader in the Warsaw Ghetto who was a lifelong anti-Zionist and stood in solidarity with the Palestinians as fellow resistance fighters, James Baldwin (when he was suggested the speaker read from Baldwin’s writing on Jews and Palestinians) and 

Shireen Abu Akleh, American Palestinian, one of the most prominent journalists across the Middle East and Palestinian territories who was targeted and killed by Israeli forces while reporting from the West Bank on May 11, 2022. The day of her death was the same day Arreguin left for his trip to Israel sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco.  

The Consent Calendar was finally approved with the naming of the Berkeley Pier going to the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission. Harrison’s item on deconstruction was withdrawn, Harrison’s item on traffic calming went to the Budget Committee and the City Manager withdrew the Public Safety Status Report to be rescheduled.  

In the motion to adjourn the council meeting, Kesarwani, Bartlett, Hahn, Wengraf, Robinson, and Humbert all voted yes, Taplin voted no and Harrison abstained.  

The most significant outcome of the December 4, Monday morning Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Committee was that when Harrison who was filling in for Bartlett asked that her item on the Community/Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) be scheduled for the next meeting, Robinson as the Chair declined, making a firm no. The due date to act on TOPA is May 13, 2024 which means that if Robinson keeps TOPA off the agenda, Arreguin who is running for the State Senate seat District 7 won’t have to vote/take a stand on TOPA until after the primary in March.  

TOPA has had a long tumultuous history in Berkeley. The earliest date I could find where TOPA was presented to the public in a readily available full Council meeting or Council Committee meeting going back to 2019 was at the Land Use Committee meeting on March 5, 2020. On that date there were 61 speakers and the due date for action was extended to January 21, 2021  

When a multi-unit building goes up for sale TOPA gives tenants the first right of refusal to purchase the property. Tenants, especially those who have experienced being in a building that was sold, are enthusiastic about being notified that a plan to sell is in process and being given the first opportunity to purchase the building. The Chamber of Commerce, the real estate industry, investors, and property owners are opposed to TOPA.  

After multiple committee meetings, there was a special full council special meeting on just TOPA on January 27, 2022. Discussion was held; there were 78 speakers and then it disappeared.  

Harrison brought it back. TOPA was listed in the council draft agenda for November 28, 2023 until Wengraf, Hahn and Arreguin voted at the Agenda and Rules Committee to remove TOPA from the agenda for the full council meeting and send TOPA to the Land Use Committee where it now looks like it will languish as long as possible or at least until Arreguin has secured his position in the primary election to be on the ballot for November for that State Senate seat.  

Kathryn Lybarger received the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club endorsement, not Arreguin, after last Saturday’s forum.  

The one Land Use Committee agenda item was from Rigel Robinson. It was Neighborhood-Scale Commercial, referring to the city manager and the Planning Commission to consider policies to permit neighborhood-scale retail uses in residential neighborhoods. It passed with a positive recommendation.  

Monday was the second meeting on the item. The motion is about researching returning these old store fronts we see in residential neighborhoods in the flats to neighborhood groceries, restaurants or other like uses. Humbert, Harrison and Robinson were all enthusiastic about the convenience for example of taking just a few steps to buy a gallon of milk instead of driving.  

There is a reason these little former storefronts were turned into other uses, usually living space.  

At neither the first meeting nor this second meeting did Councilmembers Humbert, Robinson or Harrison consider why those storefronts are no longer neighborhood groceries or another business like a restaurant. None of them considered the number of customers it takes to make enough money to pay employees and cover rent, utilities, insurance, equipment and all the supplies and goods needed for a viable business.  

When the number of customers needed to make a neighborhood business viable is considered, walkable and bikeable are left behind if the business is to bring in enough customers to cover overhead, especially if it is a restaurant. And that means cars and traffic. In their enthusiasm for the idea of businesses in residential neighborhoods Humbert and Harrison were concerned about unpleasant odors, smoke and noise.  

Berkeley has empty storefronts in commercial corridors. The latest idea for staff time is to study how to return old neighborhood storefronts that have been turned into interesting buildings for reuse, usually as housing, could be better spent on empty storefronts in commercial districts.  

The last City meeting I attended of the week was the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission. Three items were passed and all of them have been on the agenda for a number of meetings. There was more back and forth than at times seemed reasonable, but that is the democratic process. It can get messy. The Commission voted to list agenda items as “Discussion and Possible Action” which will solve the problem of having to recycle agenda items because they were listed as discussion only. The Commission decided to study how the redesign of streets, like building curbs for bicycle lanes, impacts the Fire Department response times. The Commission approved using FF funds for a one-time removal of eucalyptus debris on private property in the very high fire severity hazard zone.  

I skipped the Landmarks Preservation Commission on Thursday evening. The Budget and Finance Committee on Thursday morning was cancelled.  

Enough for today. I have several books to recommend, but I’ll save them for next time. Just put The Hundred Years War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance 1917 – 2017 by Rashid Khalidi on your list. The wait at the library is 13 weeks, so your best bet is to head up to Revolution Books. They had a stack of the book in paperback. I’ll check Pegasus tomorrow.