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My last note from the book How Democracies Die by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt is, “Democracy is a shared enterprise.” Haven’t we learned that over the last four years (and some of us would say over the last twelve)? We can’t just vote and then tune out, of course. Most of us were unable to tune out during the last four years with Trump continually sucking up media attention, news banners, notes filling our email boxes, social media posts and endless worrisome conversations with friends and family. It is nice to have a break, but even now that brief peace seems to be slipping away. And all of this brings me to this week’s summary of what happened and a bit of what is ahead.

“Democracy is a shared enterprise” is not just for national politics it is for local city politics too. If we don’t watch and participate, the hope of affordable housing at the BART station projects will slip away. Look at this coming week’s Measure O Bond Oversight Committee Special meeting at 6 pm on Wednesday: 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Measure_O_Bond_Oversight_Committee.aspx Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/93950296629. 

If the Measure O funds are assigned to BUSD-Sponsored Educator Housing then there won’t be Measure O Funds to contribute to affordable housing at the BART stations and that will give the gentrifiers a huge boost in South Berkeley. 

The Council Agenda and Rules Committee at 3 pm on Monday is the next step in getting rid of those pesky Commissions that push forward measures that the Council and City Manager would much prefer to ignore. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/Policy_Committee__Agenda___Rules.aspx 

Of course, there are those commissions and commissioners who use the easy path not to include other represented groups and needs, in other words other commissions. 

The Planning Commission put forward their plan for eliminating parking minimums for new buildings and establishing parking maximums without ever including the Disability Commission or the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission. Their plan was adopted by Council on Tuesday. 

The Disability Commission was essentially shut down by the City Manager, and the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission has been severely restricted in meeting since March 2020. These two Commissions should have been included in the Planning Commission discussion and now the Council’s decision process regarding parking requirements, and now the Disaster and Fire Safety Commission is trying to figure out how to track what the Planning Commission is doing. 

All this illustrates the siloing of city management, functions, and staff. One would think that city staff that support the boards and commissions could contribute to cross pollination of ideas from one segment of the city to another, but that doesn’t seem to be a priority. It is so much easier to shut discussion down. 

I finished off the week by attending consideration of the Santa Fe Right of Way as a potential new park meeting on Saturday morning. This wasn’t given any special attention in my Activist’s Calendar, but I had hoped that at least one attendee had seen the post from my calendar. Every once in a while I receive an email that my efforts to post City meetings is appreciated, but I wonder every week if the time spent creating the calendar is worth the effort if no one reads it. The Community Calendar is useful, but in the six years I have been tracking City meetings there are always at least one commission meeting and usually several that are missing. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/communitycalendar/ The mere fact that it is so difficult to track what is happening with Berkeley City meetings is why I started this effort. 

There were a few more things that happened at city meetings this last week. Igor Tregub stated at the Peace and Justice Commission that the Mayor was proposing to combine the Peace and Justice Commission with the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission. 

The City Council Budget & Finance Committee heard the staff presentation and public comment on the Property Tax Measures and Restore Tax Equity by changing the taxed square footage through a comprehensive verification process. This issue has been going on for months. 

Mayor Arreguin certainly got testy with the public during the meeting, and went after Councilmember Harrison in an attempt to stop her from further commenting on the issue and making suggestions for the future. Harrison didn’t stop talking. Hopefully she can find the bandwidth to put forward the needed measures, i.e. at least correcting under-measured livable space when the property is sold. 

There are too many meetings running simultaneously to catch everything, and we need to keep an eye on WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority) and the BMASP (Berkeley Marina Area Specific Plan). There will be a presentation on February 16^th to Council. The suggestions for revenue and activities at the meeting on Thursday were all pretty mundane and unimaginative. I have an idea for revenue, kicking out those G—awful restaurants on the Bay and giving those to several of the talented chefs in the area. I’ve eaten at the two restaurants in the Marina three times and it was three times too many. 

This is a little shorter today as the personal to-do list is stacking up. There will be more next time and I will fill you in on my reading. I am almost done with The Back Channel by William J. Burns, whom President Biden tapped for the CIA. 

And you can send comments to me at kellyhammargren@gmail.com.