Extra

I am writing to strongly recommend that you not take final action to adopt a single “Vision” for the Civic Center at your Tuesday, September 22, 2020 meeting but instead hold a workshop to hear a presentation of the current staff and consultant recommendations, thank the consultants for their work so their contracts can be wrapped up, and move to the next stage which should be review of the proposed “Vision” by three or four Commissions and opportunity for general public review and comment.

The proposal should certainly go for comments to the full Landmarks Preservation Commission and the full Parks & Waterfront Commission, both of which share jurisdiction over review and advising on buildings and facilities in the Civic Center area.

It should also probably go to the Public Works Commission—since it involves changes to two streets, and infrastructure—and to the Civic Arts Commission, since a major array of performing and visual arts facilities is proposed for the Civic Center.


The “Vision” can then come back to the Council at a future date for possible action. That should probably be about three or four months from now. By that time Federal and State elections will also be over and at least the broad parameters of the state and national economic and political situation will be clearer, with all their implications for municipal budgets and funding and opportunities for—or roadblocks to—civic improvements.

You have been told that the final “Vision” went through a robust community process and is ready for your action. This is not correct or accurate.

The reality is that the actual public process involved review of three options, while the final recommended “Vision” was only released publicly this month, incorporated into a more than 900 page report, with supplemental documents and reports. There has been no meaningful opportunity for Commissions, the general public, other stakeholders like community groups (in preservation and the arts in particular) or even Councilmembers for that matter, to review, digest, react to, and consider all this material. 

The Civic Center project did begin with a robust “visioning” process that began late last year. I was a participant in this as one of three (later, reduced to two) members of the Landmarks Commission serving as liaisons to the Measure T-1 planning process. Other Commissions—Public Works and Parks / Waterfront—also sent liaison members, 

so we formed a working group that the staff dubbed a “super-subcommittee” to hear presentations and discuss stages in the Civic Center process. 

All worked well until the COVID-19 disruptions and shutdowns in mid-March. Right before that, the super subcommittee had met with Civic Center consultants and staff, and heard a presentation and commented on three broad alternative scenarios.  

I believe we all expected that the next step would be a full public airing of the scenarios, then further consultation with the super subcommittee, then work by the staff and consultants to narrow things down to a preferred DRAFT concept. That concept then could be aired with the general public and several commissions during the late Spring and Summer, fine-tuned and, finally, sent this Fall to the Council for its review. 

Instead, because of COVID-19, the public process to review was quickly and understandably shifted from big public meetings to a website where comments could be received. You’ve seen the staff report on the comment process. The public comment process on the three scenarios seems to have wrapped up in April, or early May.

At that point it appears that further discussion refining the three broad concepts into a preferred concept was concentrated within City staff and consultant interaction. Apparently there was also some internal consultation between the project team and Councilmembers or their representatives in June or July. 

I can’t find any personal record of the “super subcommittee” being contacted from mid-April to mid-September, nearly a five month period. Then subcommittee members suddenly received a invitation to a Friday, September 18, Zoom presentation of the “final” vision recommendations, and links to the Council agenda. This was the first I 

had heard for some months that the process had moved ahead and I was flatly astonished to hear that there was a “final” recommended “vision” with specifics about the buildings, parks, and streetscapes, including basic design and proposed uses. 

I attended that meeting last Friday, as did two of the other six Commission members. We were given a Powerpoint overview of the recommendations, told that the final concept was done, it was there for the Council to review, and the Council would be asked to adopt it on Tuesday. The mid-September release of the item in the Council agenda packet was also apparently the first “general public” release of the final recommended Vision. 

There have been vexing issues with the size of the document files. I haven’t yet been able to download all of them on my computer for review. At least two of the other people at the Sept. 18 meeting with staff said the same. 

Given this context, the resolution before you—“Adoption - Civic Center Vision and Implementation Plan”—is not accurate in its statement that “the City of Berkeley’s project team has conducted an inclusive and transparent community process, engaged meaningfully with stakeholders, and providing a compelling and shared vision for the Civic Center area…” 

The truth is that the process broadly engaged with stakeholders through April when there were still three concepts. Then, in part because of COVID-19, the process deliberations went “internal” for four or five months and remerged with a single recommendation that has gone straight to the Council without any opportunity for Commission or general public review or thoughtful comments to the Council. 

I also have had the opportunity to speak briefly with one Councilmember who told me their understanding as of last week was that the Council would be having a workshop on Tuesday, not adopting a specific singular “vision”. But the resolution states that the Council “declares its intent to support the vision and preferred design concepts articulated in the plan…(and)…the City Manager is hereby authorized to further the implementation of the plan and its ambitious vision…” 

That is premature. I do not write this as an attack on the City staff or consultants. 

They, like all of us, have been doing the best they can in unprecedented times and circumstances. I have admired the work and energy in particular of the City’s Project Manager. She, and they, have done their part. 

But the next step should be the opportunity for Commissions and community groups to comment and do their part, followed then—not immediately—by Council consideration and action. 

From the partial materials I have seen of the recommended “Vision” there is a lot to like. It recommends restoration and re-use of the landmark City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building which form the core of the Civic Center facilities. It correctly focuses on the Veterans Building as a great place for flexible performing arts space. It has some concepts—some interesting, some problematic—for Civic Center Park.  

But we all—including you—need time to review this material. 

I also want to also speak to you about one key recommendation of the “Vision” that I do find problematic. This is the literal “centerpiece” proposal for a large new City Council chambers to be built in Civic Center Park. (Calling this a “meeting hall” is disingenuous. Regardless of whether it could or would be used for other meetings, the central function would be as a Council Chamber.) 

I strongly caution the Council not to go on record as supporting this specific concept, at least not at this time. 

There should be good and functional places for the Council and other City bodies and civic and community groups to meet and they should be in Civic Center. But the solution is not an expensive (up to nine million dollar?) purpose built new building that occupies park land. 

If you examine all the buildings of the Civic Center—and I have been through all of them, literally from top to bottom, room to room, space to space, in recent years—there are at least a dozen existing, but un-renovated, meeting and event spaces that could, if properly redesigned and renovated, house all sorts of public meetings including Council meetings. These existing spaces can accommodate groups from 30 to nearly 3,000 people. They are all currently vacant and unrenovated. The City is not using them. Planning to spend millions to build yet another meeting space—and, at the same, time, diminish public park land in the City’s core—is simply crazy. 

In addition to the facilities that the City directly owns and controls, there is potential for large meeting facilities in the Community Theater—currently unused by the School District—and, perhaps, the Main Post Office which a more enlightened Federal Administration could loan, lease, or sell to the City for inclusion in the Civic Center. 

Focus on building a new, unnecessary, and unnecessarily grand, Council Chambers is the same mistake another Council made two decades ago when it proposed a bond issue for renovation of City Hall that failed. Don’t make that mistake again, particularly when every person and every organization around you, is struggling with crushing health, economic and financial challenges. 

Do you—as a group, and individually—want to go on record that one of your highest priorities for Civic Center is spending money the City doesn’t currently have on building a new meeting hall for yourselves? You all have better political acumen than that. 

But make no mistake that adopting the current “Vision” as it is presented you, would lead you directly into that huge error.