On January 26, the Berkeley council unanimously approved a “parking reform package” that drastically reduced the requirements for parking in most new housing projects. The lot was sold as a transformative twofer that would induce a “mode shift”—plannerese for getting people out of their cars and on to bikes, public transit, and their own two feet—thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions; and at the same time expedite affordable housing.

The item originated as a 2015 referral from Councilmember Lori Droste. On January 27, Droste tweeted: “It is a thrilling day for climate action and affordability in our city.”

That remains to be seen. What can be said with certainty right now is that it was a moderately thrilling day for housing developers. Onsite (off-street) parking is expensive to build. The council eliminated parking minimums in all new housing projects except in the H (Hills) and ES-R (Environmental Safety-Residential, i.e., wildfire) Districts and the enactment of provisional parking maximums in transit-rich areas of the city. Provisional, because a developer can ask for permission to exceed the maximums. As Droste put it: “We’re not banning parking, we’re just not requiring people to build parking if they don’t need it.” The operative term here is the antecedent of “they”: I take it to be “developers.” In other words, this is developer-driven policy.

It can also be said with certainty that January 26 was not a thrilling day for data-driven decisionmaking. The council approved the changes with scant evidence that they would get people to drive less and no evidence whatsoever that they would lower the cost of housing. 

What Berkeley’s Residential Parking Utilization Study really showed 

On January 27, Droste retweeted Berkeley Housing Advisory Commissioner and California Yimby staffer Darrell Owens’ statement that “[a] recent staff analysis found that nearly 50% of the existing off-street parking spots in housing projects around the city sit empty.” Droste commented: “that’s why we abolished parking requirements and imposed no more than half a building can have parking yesterday.” 

That’s disputable. The staff analysis [see Attachment 4, agenda for Council Special Meeting, January 26 (continued from December 15, 2020), p. 175 of the council packet] was supposedly based on the Parking Utilization Study conducted by Nelson Nygaard Consulting Associates in October 2019. The study focused on multi-unit residential projects of ten or more units, most of them with unbundled parking (on-site but you have to pay for it). According to city staff, the study “showed that only 54% off street parking was occupied. It also showed that 60% of on-street parking spaces near surveyed buildings were occupied—suggesting that on-street parking ‘spillover’ was not a concern.” 

That’s not what the study showed. In a February 3, 2021, memo to the Albany City Council and other Albany agencies, Albany Planning Commissioner Doug Donaldson accurately summarized the findings of the Berkeley study: 

“Albany’s parking standards for mixed-use projects call for 1 space for each unit. A recent study of multi-family residential parking in Berkeley indicates that this would be sufficient, but that removing the parking minimum would significantly increase the on-street parking demand. The study found that the average on- and off-street parking occupancy across 20 properties surveyed was 55% (53% off-street and 61% on-street—this on-street component is important because most of the properties have unbundled parking and many tenants choose not to pay for an off-street space). A search of DMV records indicated that .5 vehicles were registered per unit.” 

In an email, Donaldson observed to me that “Nelson Nygaard did their surveys after midnight and monitored the parking on the streets around the buildings. At that hour there is no turnover and cars parked near the buildings are likely to be associated with those buildings. At least that has been my experience when monitoring 510 Centro in El Cerrito Plaza. Also, Nelson Nygaard had license plate info from RpP permits. That info gave them the addresses associated with each plate.” 

In short, the Berkeley study did find that on-street spillover parking was a concern, though given the empty spaces in the onsite parking, it’s hard to call this “spillover.” No evidence here that unbundling parking dissuades people from owning and driving cars. 

The affordability myth 

The approval of the parking reform package was based on yet another data-challenged premise: the notion that if you reduce or just eliminate parking requirements in residential projects, housing will be less expensive—in other words, that developers’ savings will trickle down to tenants’ lower rents. 

That notion elicited skepticism from Councilmember Susan Wengraf. “What mechanisms,” Wengraf asked, “do we have in place that would lower the cost of housing with lower parking requirements?” 

Pearson replied that lower parking requirements would reduce the costs of production, but that “we cannot be sure that that discount will be passed on to residents.” Interim Planning Director Jordan Klein went further, stating that “the actual price of housing is driven primarily by market rate—like what the market will actually pay for it.” 

Wengraf responded: “I have a fear that this will not result in lower housing costs. Have you done any research in other cities that have imposed these kinds of restrictions on parking” and “is there any kind of analysis on how it turned out in terms of housing costs?” 

None was available at the meeting. Droste said, “There are plenty of studies.” I’ve twice emailed her office asking for links to a few such studies. She has yet to reply. 

Wengraf asked that the council evaluate the reduced parking requirements policy in five years “and see if it’s had any impact at all on housing costs.” Then she joined her colleagues in voting to approve the “reform package.” 

Transit-rich hype 

To be viable, a shift away from private auto use requires the existence of something to shift to. For all their homage to biking and walking, the parking reformers tacitly concede that the key alternative to driving is public transit. That’s why the newly approved parking maximums only apply to new projects in “transit-rich areas.” 

The council’s packet included a map of such areas (unmarked as Attachment 6, appears on p. 188 of the agenda). The map shows parts of the city that are “1/4 Mile from Transit Hubs and Corridors.” Such areas appear to encompass most of Berkeley outside of the high hills, indicated as territory east of Spruce Street and College Avenue. Whether they were ever “transit-rich” is debatable. That they are currently transit-poor is undeniable. 

Councilmember Sophie Hahn represents District 5 (north Berkeley and low hills). At the January 26 meeting, Hahn said, The main line in my district has been discontinued, and I'm worried that it won’t be coming back. We’ve built with the anticipation of a bus line, and it’s not there.” 

City staff tried to assuage such apprehensions. “We’ve heard about a lack of service, without which we can’t expect a shift from private vehicle use….,” said Principal Planner Alene Pearson. “So we asked ourselves: What should come first: a change in behavior, or a change in conditions?” Cue a PowerPointed photo of a chick and an egg. “Do you propose policies that are supported by existing conditions? Or do you propose policies that will influence future conditions?” In this case, staff and the Planning Commission decided to “propose policies that will make change happen.” 

Pearson continued: “[P]rior to Covid, transit was expanding and increasing in use. Remember the double-decker transit buses, the new BART trains, ferry service and bike stations like the ones in Center Street Garage?....The regulations we’re discussing today will be applied to…projects that will not be constructed for at least another two years. We are confident that once Covid is under control, the improved transit service and usage that were in effect before will return.” 

I used to ride AC Transit, Muni, and BART a lot. I do not remember the double-decker buses. I do remember the new BART trains; they were comfortable and attractive. Unfortunately, they were also defective. The day before the council meeting, the San Jose Mercury ran a story under the headline “BART ‘Fleet of the Future’ Hits Software, Reliability Roadblock.” Nico Savidge reported that the new trains’ manufacturer, Bombardier, and BART “once promised they would have more than 600 new cars in service by the end of 2020, with the full fleet of 775 zipping around the Bay Area a year later. Instead, BART has only received 286 cars, and estimates the full order won’t arrive until spring 2023. And that could slip further depending on how long the reliability problems take to fix.” Whatever you think of ferries and bikes, they won’t suffice to transport Berkeley’s residents, workers, and visitors, including people accessing the University. 

Then there’s the claim that before Covid, Bay Area transit was expanding and increasing in use. In February 2020, researchers housed at UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies and funded by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission reported that the reality was more complex: “Service is up and patronage is down.” 

“[D]espite a booming economy in 2027 and 2018,” wrote the UCLA team, “the [Bay Area] lost over 27 million annual transit boardings, over 5 percent of all transit trips. Transit patronage in 2019 was back to where it was in 2008. Excluding the two largest operators, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (Muni) and Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), regional ridership is less than 90 percent of where it was a decade ago.” 

At the same time, “since 2014 most systems have been adding hours and mileage, in some cases substantially. But just as service supply is on the rise, ridership has again begun to fall. The Bay Area has, therefore, avoided a spiral of service cuts and ridership losses, as happened in other metro areas, but instead faces the perhaps more vexing issue of increased service carrying fewer riders.” 

Now both service and ridership have plummeted. On January 18, Droste tweeted: “In 2015, I proposed reforming our antiquated parking requirements. finally 5 YEARS LATER, it will be coming back to Council.” Thanks to Covid and Work from Home, the new rules, barely a month old, were passé even before they were approved. 

Transit’s future in the Bay Area is currently a huge question mark. Given that uncertainty, this is a moment to wait and see what happens to work and travel in the wake of widespread vaccination. Instead, the council opted for virtue signaling. At least housing developers will be pleased. 

 

This letter sets out our organization’s position on the proposed city council resolution to eliminate all R-1 zoning in Berkeley. The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA) does not oppose efforts to create more affordable dense housing in Berkeley. BAHA’s primary aim is to ensure that whatever housing is built in Berkeley honors Berkeley’s unique architectural heritage.  

The Resolution currently under consideration falls short of effectuating its ostensible goal – creation of more neighborhood diversity and more affordable housing--and will instead in all likelihood result in the demolition of single-family homes in favor of faceless (expensive) condominiums and/or large student residences leased by the University to house its planned 50% increase in student population. Our concerns are grounded in history, namely the development surge of the 1950s and ’60s, during which many of Berkeley’s single-family homes were demolished in favor of ugly apartment buildings that have not stood the test of time (being, among other things, largely seismically unsafe) and that (when built) neither created more neighborhood diversity nor provided more affordable housing. It is also based on information supplied by the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) on its current expansion plans, which – by increasing the student population dramatically -- will fundamentally alter the character of our City and neighborhoods and will further pit Berkeley’s non-student residents against students for affordable housing.  

BAHA urges the City Council to table the current resolution in favor of further examination of how best to open avenues for the creation of denser, more diverse and affordable housing while at the same time ensuring that whatever is built honors Berkeley’s unique architectural heritage. One key place to start is a current and full examination of Berkeley’s current population and residential areas (including racial and economic diversity), who actually is living in or has access to renting in newly constructed apartment complexes, a census of existing under-utilized properties (empty apartment buildings etc.), and the impact of UCB’s current Long Range Development Plan (LRDP), which calls for a dramatic increase in students, on available affordable housing. Whatever plan or resolution that is formulated based upon this study should consider the cultural and architectural history of the City and ensure that the unique architectural character of Berkeley is preserved. 

Our specific comments are as follows: 

1. The Resolution will not effectuate its goal of creating more neighborhood diversity and affordable housing, but instead will create a land rush to convert R-1 parcels into multi-unit condominium buildings or student housing, neither of which will be available to Berkeley’s current low-income residents.
2. The language of the Resolution is ambiguous and incapable of being implemented as written, and consequently, if passed, will end up in prolonged litigation that is expensive, pointless, and unnecessary.
3. The Resolution is based on the false assumption that removing R-1 zoning would cause the construction of affordable housing and create racial diversity (as opposed to economic diversity) in the Hills and other current R-1 districts. In all likelihood, removing the R-1 zoning would cause single-family homes to be razed in favor of condos for high income individuals; not creation of numerous rental units for the working poor.
4. The Resolution is based on a misunderstanding of the key purpose behind retaining R-1 zoning, namely designating an area for residential versus commercial purpose; removing residential zoning could result in manufacturing or commercial property use in these areas.
5. Berkeley currently does not have the infrastructure or geographic layout capable of sustaining a huge surge in population and high-rise buildings in all R-1 areas of the City.
6. The Resolution provides no data about who lives where in Berkeley now and how long they have stayed in any given area. It also provides no references to land use studies demonstrating a connection between removing residential zoning and thereby recovering or creating racial and socioeconomic diversity in a city.
7. Even if the Resolution caused the construction of new rental units, recent history demonstrates that new rental housing in Berkeley is being consumed by University; the solution is not to build more rentals that the University will take over but work to limit student population so non-students have chance at securing rental units.
8. Homes in R-1 areas are naturally turning over as owners die or are moved to assisted living. The Resolution would create the scenario where the neighbors of all these houses will find that they are suddenly faced with teardowns and multi-unit condos or rentals as new neighbors. Most people do not invest in single-family homes and risk such major changes in their neighborhood’s aesthetics because of unexpected and arbitrary changes in city zoning.
9. The Resolution as proposed will in all likelihood result in demolition of historic and cultural resources in favor of lot-line-to-lot-line condo boxes. Many of the properties in the R-1 districts include large lots with architectural gems, including gardens designed in the early 1900s by nationally recognized landscape architects. Losing these properties, many of which are landmarked, in an ill-conceived and factually unsupported zoning change to carve up the properties and turn them into multi-unit condos or rentals will cost Berkeley many of these important historic assets and with them, part of what makes Berkeley unique.

I write in reference to agenda items 18 and 19, regarding the banning of gasoline burning cars, and about item 29, regarding a resolution to end so-called exclusionary zoning in Berkeley. I shall not mince words in this open letter to you. I will focus on item 29 to start. 

The argument put forward in the zoning item rests on three feet: (1) a historical argument that the item proposes to combat racism by reversing some zoning law, (2) an economic argument that this will improve housing affordability, and (3) an environmental argument that this would be tremendous progress in meeting the challenges of the urgent climate emergency. 

Each of the three arguments made in the memo are not merely wrong, but are so wrong they force the question: is this incompetence or malice? 

You have, no doubt, seen the very beginnings of rebuttal to the historic arguments. These will not be my focus, others have got this. The ethnicity or race of co-sponsors is no defense. The recitation of history is at best wildly distorted and pointing at very silly conclusions.  

The economic argument for the proposed upzoning rests on a table that purports to report the median incomes of Berkeley households, broken down to the building typology (number of units) and year of construction of each household's residence. The source cited (incorrectly) is "Public Use Microdata Samples" from a Census Bureau American Community Survey ("ACS") 5 year data set. 

Facially, the table is an absurdity. The ACS data tables literally contain no information from which such alleged median household incomes, broken down to that level of granularity, could possibly be computed. The table is a textbook example of a complete statistical fabrication. Allegedly, at least 6 of you have reviewed this item, presumably with the help of your staffs. Allegedly it is the product of over a years work. Somehow, the total fabrication of that table - central to the argument in the memo, evaded your attention or concern? It's a breathtaking display of shear incompetence or malice - who can say for sure which. 

Of greater concern to me is the environmental argument put forward. Once again, YIMBY-oriented council members have cited a paper (Jones et al.) coming from the Coolclimate group at Cal. Once again, these members have misrepresented what question the paper tries to answer, and have advanced wildly over-reaching (and self-serving) interpretations of the paper. That this seems to be the beginning, middle, and end of Council's awareness of the climate emergency here in 2021 is mortifying. You people - and I do not use these words lightly - are helping to cause genocide. There is no way around that fact. 

Greenhouse gas emissions - and thus the actual extraction and burning of fossil fuel - must now fall very, very rapidly if even your own children and grandchildren are to have a future. If fossil fuel burning in this region is not very nearly over by the end of this decade, all hope is truly lost. Though old, I will likely live to suffer from your very bad choices. Several of of you will live long enough to lament your casual inattention to the greatest and most well documented of planetary emergencies of all time. Every child you know, you sentence to unspeakable horror. It is impossible to exaggerate how profoundly irresponsible, harmful, deadly, and criminal is the the lack of seriousness with which you approach this emergency. You are the city council that at long last, after all these years, that has finally forced me to give up any semblance of respect for you -- to in fact regard you as people engaged actively in a planetary scale genocide. 

Of course, in this context, both items that fantasize about banning internal combustion engine vehicles in 2045 are equally obscene. There is simply no way to read them but as the work of people who are either consciously attempting global genocide, or who are entirely oblivious to the incredibly massive amount of accessible, globally discussed actual science about the emergency we are in. Seeing your performance, I have come to better understand and appreciate why Greta Thunberg, given a global stage in 2018, said "Your house is burning. I want you to panic." Panic is not a breakdown. Panic is a clarity. When you are in a burning building, and you panic, you can finally become clear about what is and what is not of existential importance. We need leaders in that kind of woke panic. We don't need - and are greatly harmed by - your bullshit, bluff, and bluster about climate. 

See you in hell, Thomas Lord (District 2)

The Berkeley City Council on Tuesday adopted a set of police reforms, over the objections of the Berkeley Police Association, which represents officers in the city's police department. ; "These groundbreaking reforms are aimed at eliminating unnecessary police stops and holding officers accountable," Mayor Jesse Arreguin said on social media after the council vote.  

Arreguin cited figures from the Center on Policing Equity that concluded Black people are 6.5 times more likely to be stopped by Berkeley officers than white persons while driving and 4.5 times more likely to be stopped while on foot. 

New policies will include eliminating stops for low level offenses, requiring written consent for all consent searches, and ending requests for parole or probation status. 

"This is a big problem for community safety," Arreguin said. "Biased policing has implications for community trust. And communities that are less trusting or fearful of police are less safe because they do not report crimes." The police association, in a letter sent to the council before its vote Tuesday, said neither it nor officers on the beat were consulted during the creation of the new policies.  

"At stake is the safety of Berkeley citizens and its police officers as the proposed reforms will turn officers into filing clerks, gutting their much-needed time on the streets within our community," association President Sgt. Darren Kacelek said in the letter. "We want to work with our elected leaders and partners to strengthen the police-community relationship, but it can't be a one-way street as the process of these recommendations suggest."  

Arreguin, however, said that eliminating unnecessary stops "will free up public safety resources enabling police to focus on priorities like violent crime."

Putsch, noun, a plotted revolt or attempt to overthrow a government, especially one that depends upon suddenness and speed.

It’s a word that has historically acquired very ugly connotations because of its association with the Nazis, but it can also be used in somewhat less ominous contexts. Putsches major and minor happen from time to time. Attempted putsches can be seen everywhere from PTAs to congressional committee chairs.

At the moment it looks like we are in the middle of what we might label a “Pandemic Putsch”, a takeover orchestrated by ambitious politicians on behalf of some speculative financiers who contribute to their campaigns.

While local residents have been pre-occupied with coronavirus-inflicted crises as mundane as stockpiling toilet paper and as consequential as avoiding being evicted, developers who specialize in land speculation and their wannabes have been making best efforts to avoid the controls that years of general planning were supposed to be regulating. They seek exceptions to every local land use rule, with only one hard and fast criterion: The project has to “pencil out”, i.e. it must provide the speculative capitalist with an obscene rate of return. And since they can't game all the rules, they're pushing to change them. 

Since this is being written in Berkeley, by and for Berkeley residents, we’ll concentrate on what’s going on here, but the same thing is happening all over California, and in Bloomington, Austin, Vancouver and London, to choose a few venues at random. 

The cover for the accelerated development activity, the spark that fuels the flame that are engulfing our older urban and suburban cities, is provided by the shift from local government by citizen consensus to sovereignty by soundbyte. Weighty decisions that used to be discussed in Berkeley at lively public hearings, sometimes punctuated by colorful demonstrations, are apparently being settled off-camera in the age of Zoom. 

Public comments on Zoom are limited to one minute per person, subject to being axed by the presiding official mid-sentence. Online, faces and protest signs are hidden, with the patently false claim that showing the assembled online audience is technically impractical, which anyone who participates in online organizations recognizes as dubious. Names can be faux, a rule particularly attractive to the YIMBY claque marshalled by Twitter to call in from San Francisco or Sacramento or wherever they live. 

Examples of how this works can often be observed online. 

First, last Thursday morning, if you had the right kind of high-tech setup and a fast dialing finger, you might have gotten a look at a prime example of the Pandemium Putsch in action. 

The Berkeley City Council's Land Use and Housing committee discussed a proposal by four councilmembers to permit construction of four dwelling units on lots currently zoned for single family homes. Mayor Jesse Arreguin and Councimembers Droste, Kesarwani and Taplin have been the prime proponents of this legislation. 

Many, many Berkeley residents tried to call in and failed, since the COB Zoom license limited citizen participation to 100 callers, and those comments were the new normal: one-minute soundbytes, totally inadequate for discussion of what would be a major dramatic change in the city’s fabric. 

If you’d like hear what went down, you can listen to the audio here if you’re on the privileged side of the digital divide. Never mind the large percentage of Berkeleyans who don't even have smart phones, let alone computers. 

Second, at its next meeting,Tuesday at 6 pm, the Berkeley City Council will debate a resolution to support elimination of what sponsors are hoping to label exclusionary zoning—i.e. single family zones. 

Old folks who have been around since the early 1970s are well aware that the speculators' real target now is acquiring the land under the remaining single family homes in South and West Berkeley, just as it was in that era. At that time single family zoning was backed by progressives, led by Berkeley’s African American Mayor Warren Widener and councilmembers including Ron Dellums, in order to protect the Black homeowners who had bought their houses in the neighborhood around San Pablo Park. 

They’d been redlined out of the Berkeley Hills by duplicitous real estate agents and restrictive covenants, and the value of their home investments in the flats, where some had been able to buy, was being threatened by the “cash register multiples” which were being promoted for the expanding student population and by “white hippies” who wanted communal group houses instead of family homes. 

Now the same pattern is emerging again, with variations. Those who don’t remember history are happy to repeat it. 

But now a lot of my peers who were in Berkeley in the 70s are still around to set the record straight, as they have been doing on NextDoor, Berkeleyside and elsewhere. The attempt to conflate single family residential zoning in the flats with direct racial exclusion in the hills by restrictive covenant was called blackwashing by one writer, akin to the greenwashing name for phony environmental claims by developers. 

Berkeley Councilmembers Bartlett, Droste, Robinson and Taplin have aready expressed their support for the resolution, and the Mayor is on record endorsing the pseudo-historical concept on which it’s predicated, so it’s clear what the decision will be—and it looks like the deal’s gone down. But just in case, Vice-Mayor Droste has told her YIMBY followers that she expects this item to come up around 9 if they want to call in from wherever they are to tell Berkeley what to do. 

The predatory development speculators are gathering in Sacramento too, with the benefit of about a half-million dollars from only one of the several YIMBY fronts and leadership by Senators Scott Wiener and Nancy Skinner. But that’s a story for another day. 

Meanwhile, you could call in to the Berkeley City Council meeting on Tuesday to see what's happening and speak your piece.

The agenda packet for the full city council meeting can be found here. 

The resolution is item 29 on the agenda. 

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81676274736 

And also, if you write a letter to the council, send the Planet a copy at opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com. 

 

 

 

 

As promised, today we have four excellent new submissions in the "Extra" section.

There is a lot to be learned from what happened in Texas this last week. While Texans are rightly angry with Ted Cruz taking off to Cancun to avoid the crisis, I’ve been thinking it would be nice to send some of our City elected officials to Cancun to sit out the rest of their terms as a damage control measure.

Land use, zoning, housing and infrastructure grabbed all the attention this week from Tuesday through Saturday. 

Mayor Arreguin was evidently expecting enthusiasm for the ferry and pier at the Tuesday Council Worksession, since when it didn’t come, he dismissed the public comments, saying, “ I just want to represent that the people that come to our meetings. [While] we respect the comments, they don’t always reflect the vast majority of opinion in the Berkeley community…” 

Berkeley is literally in the WETA (Waterfront Emergency Transportation Authority) boat because the old pier wasn’t maintained and had to be closed. WETA will build a new pier on the condition of adding ferry service. 

A ferry to and from San Francisco sounds sort of romantic, a bygone era, and is presented as a reasonable commuter alternative to BART, bus or simply driving. No one is talking about how long it will take to get across the bay by ferry, just how much taxpayers are subsidizing ferry service, or if Berkeley will be on the hook for financing if the ridership doesn’t materialize. The consultant said fares at $10 per trip cover only 58% of the operating cost. The assumption is being made that after a ferry commute, riders will hang out at the marina and fill out the lagging marina fund. Brennan Cox said that ferries are popular on the east coast and he doesn’t understand why there is not more enthusiasm. I would like to suggest that other forms of transportation are less time consuming, more convenient and it looks like will be less costly. 

The pier/ferry presentation followed the report that 92 people were served/housed during the pandemic homeless outreach effort. Sadly, there are hundreds more living on the street. 

The other Tuesday meeting, the first meeting of the week, was the best, with a presentation for Community for a Cultural Civic Center Park Subcommittee by Margo Schueler on infrastructure. Every time I hear Margo speak I leave with another layer of new knowledge, i.e. the brick permeable surface on Allston between MLK and Milvia should last 85 to 100 years whereas asphalt streets deteriorate and need replacement every 10 – 15 years. There are other benefits too. Bricks slow traffic, lower urban heat, give air to the tree roots enhancing survival, decreasing sidewalk and street uplift, and permeable paving directs water into the ground underneath, decreasing the need for watering. Allston brick was laid by hand, but there are machines that do it. And, Michigan and Iowa are the leaders in permeable paving, because of lower maintenance during the winter. 

Thursday morning, so many people tried to attend the Council Land Use Committee meeting that the number of attempted attendees exceeded the zoom meeting limit of 100. Some texted Sophie Hahn that they couldn’t get in and she in turn shared the problem with her colleagues and city staff. 

When the meeting limit couldn’t be expanded, Christopher Jensen, the Assistant City Attorney, was consulted regarding whether the meeting needed to be canceled and rescheduled and whether any action could be taken. Mr. Jensen’s conclusion was that exceeding the zoom room capacity was no different from exceeding room capacity in an in-person meeting. However he failed to remember that when in-person attendance exceeded capacity people were able to hear the meeting as it happened, and were allowed into the meeting room to give public comment. In a zoom meeting people are just shut out. No action was taken as public comment filled the meeting. 

The agenda items garnering such attention were TOPA– Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act--which was postponed until March, and the Quadplex Zoning proposal from Councilmembers Droste, Taplin and Kesarwani with Mayor Arreguin as Co-sponsor. Declaration of a terrible housing shortage is at a constant roar, with the solution as unbridled building with ministerial approval, even while we are surrounded by a glut of vacant market rate units and construction of mixed-use projects (commercial first floor with housing above) proceeds at a feverish pace. There were move-in-today-lease signs in Downtown Berkeley in attempts to fill vacant units even before the pandemic caused the exiting of students. 

The Quadplex zoning proposal, the main meeting event, allows for building of up to four units on one lot with no limits on the number of bedrooms in each unit. Another proposed benefit for the developer/contractor of the quadplex is that when there is ministerial approval (basically sign-off by someone at the Planning Department counter, no public review, no Zoning Adjustment Board, no Design Review Commitee) tenants would not need to be notified, so if TOPA ever passes, the tenant purchase opportunity will slip away. 

In Patrick M. Condon’s book Sick City: Disease, Race, Inequality and Urban Land, page 12 he writes, “…the smartest people in the development game are the land speculators, men and women who make a handy living out of hunting up land that might soon be ‘improved’ by the provision of a new highway, a new transit station or a change in allowable land use…” [emphasis added] 

My cynical side says the ordinances to eliminate single family housing zoning and to establish quadplex zoning are just-in-time “changes in allowable land use” for speculators to scoop up foreclosures for a handy profit when the protections established during the pandemic expire. Top it off with calling people who question or resist “racists” for a perfect mix. That might summarize Darrell Owens, representing Councilmember Droste at last Saturday’s meeting sponsored by Berkeley Neighborhoods Council. 

The special meeting was called to focus on item 29, Resolution to End Exclusionary Zoning in Berkeley, under Action items in the Tuesday evening, February 23 City Council meeting agenda. The supposedly Exclusionary zoning is single family homes. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/2021/02_Feb/City_Council__02-23-2021_-_Regular_Meeting_Agenda.aspx 

As always, I conclude my weekly Activist Diary with what I’m reading. On a recommendation from my sister, I interrupted my week’s plans to read the novel American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins. It was a page turner of fleeing violence to enter the US illegally. Don’t pick up this book if you have a long to-do list, as none of that will get done until you finish, at least that is what happened to my week. A companion to this account is one of our 2020 book club choices, A Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Frances Cantu, the account of a border patrol agent. 

I’m running out of library time on The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff and Under a White Sky, the Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism is a deep accounting of collecting our personal data and how that data is used to forecast and manipulate behavior. If you know anyone who played Pokeman that chapter will definitely grab your attention.

Since the city has moved to Zoom meetings, the city can do better to allow participation by using Zoom's features. The current manner of conducting meetings leaves residents with the impression that our participation is not wanted or valued.  

• Use your large capacity Zoom account for topics which you know to be controversial. While many council committee meetings may not be well attended, the number of emails and social media shares should have alerted the authors of the Quadplex item to the level of interest in this topic. Higher capacity zoom accounts are inexpensive for the city. For just $50 more a year than you are currently paying, you can have a capacity of 300 participants.
• Livestream events to Facebook, You tube or a custom Facebook Live, YouTube custom streaming service. and post this information in advance, so folks who want to listen but don't need to speak can still participate. It is inexcusable that you didn't livestream the Land-Use meeting, after people were locked out due to capacity. Most folks who tried to log in would have given up.
• Show us residents the zoom participants. Let us know how many callers are waiting to speak.
• Open the chat and post important links there (such as the link to the supplemental agenda material. If the city believes that public comments would become inappropriate, Zoom allows you to either delete inappropriate comments or make the chat one way... host only.
• If using the webinar format you have many other features you are not utilizing including polling, Q&A and post survey links to get more feel of your callers opinions.

Finally, I was disappointed that many folks calling in today to support the Quadplex item were allowed to spend their time attacking the character and values of the folks calling in to ask for improvements to the item. Furthermore, their attacks were not admonished by the chair. It's a shame that the pro-development camp didn't have something more useful to say about the proposal itself.

Can you imagine? There were five instances of police brutality against black people by the Berkeley police during 2020. A town of 115,000 people. Extended to the whole country, that would be in excess of 12,500 black people brutalized by government agents in that year. And that wouldn’t include Latinxs, or Asians, or Native Americans. Or white people. 

These five incidents were presented in a video by Copwatch, using material from street videographers and informed commentary. Here is the link to it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDcHot1-DH4&authuser=0] Some of the scenes look like they are right out of a World War Two movie. 

But we can’t call it "fascist." There would be howls of objection. “How can you say that, this is a democray.” Everyone is talking about the need to save “our democracy.” Mention the f-word and you’ll get cut off. “Thank you, next speaker please.”  

Here are some highlights from the Copwatch presentation. 

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In one video, a black man is sitting on the ground in a storefront doorway, in broad daiylight. Four cops stand around, ten feet back from him, talking to him. A fifth cop has a popgun raised at his shoulder (short barrel, one-inch diameter, for shooting “non-lethal” beanbags or rubber rounds). The man is trying to explain something to these cops. His body language says "no." He gestures say "urgency." Without warning, the cop with the popgun fires. The man screams, a low pitched masculine scream, and falls over on his side. The other four cops descend on him quickly. Wounded by the shot, he can now be approached. We don’t see what happens next. 

We later find out that all he refused to do was lie down on the ground, face down, so they could handcuff him – the way the cops had held George Floyd, handcuffed and face down, as they killed him. 

Who is this black man sitting in the doorway of an abandoned liquor store on a Saturday (3/14/20) during a pandemic? He is the scapegoat, the man through whom the cops as a team will sanctify themselves. 

Why is he the scapegoat? Because he is a member of a subjugated group (lower pay, no housing protection, higher death rate from the pandemic, segregated education and health care, etc.), a group whose role is to obey, to be commanded and humiliated so that they no longer see themselves as people. “Lie on the ground face down; prostrate yourself.” 

The second aspect of this event is the team of cops. Five of them stand around, refusing to touch this man. They do not help him up so they can arrest him and put him in their squad car. They were the ones who told him to lie down in the first place, so they could arrest him. They didn’t attempt to arrest him while he was standing up. You don’t treat scapegoats that way. 

They call themselves the police. But they are the “armed service” of society. Not the “armed services.” That is something else. Its headquarters is in the Pentagon. They are the “armed service.” Maybe it is more familiar in Spanish. El Servicio Armado. That has the more recognizable initials: SA. 

The third aspect of this event is the cops’ response to his refusal to lie down. They shoot him. When he refuses, they use weapons. Their first task was to dehumanize him by ordering him to prostrate himself. Their second task was to incapacitate him so they could arrest him. For that, they use weapons. 

He offers no threat, yet they deal with him through levels of technology. 

The police demand to have weapons (they say) to defend themselves (they say) against an armed public (they say) that is hostile and aggressive toward them. But this man is not. He is compliant to the point of sitting on the ground, but he will not prostrate himself. So we see why the police have weapons. It is not defensive. Their weapons are for aggressive purposes -- to kill or maim the non-compliant. 

The SA is that part of governance to which we [people] cannot say no. They shot this man because that is what the SA does in order to establish its control. Control is not done with discourse (too democratic), or law (too equitable), or reason (too non-hierarchical). It is done through dehumanization, using commands and weapons. 

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A second such event in the Copwatch video: same year, same town, same pandemic, same economic crisis, same blackness of victim. 

A homeless black man, feeling hungry late in the evening, goes into a CVS, picks up a sandwich, a milk, a potato salad, and goes to the cashier. He empties his pockets -- a dollar, some change, and a return item. It doesn’t amount to the 12 dollars his factory-made dinner will cost. But it is all he has. He puts these things on the counter as an offering and leaves. Someone hits the panic button. The sliding doors lock. He pulls out a bicycle chain, and threatens to break through the glass door to the outside. Someone hits a different button, and the door opens. He leaves. He is not going to grovel for a lousy factory-made sandwich. And the store will lose nothing. The sandwich is insured. 

But he wasn’t even "stealing." He was attempting to reduce the economic situation to the level the economic situation had reduced him. Isn’t that what they call equity? 

But the panic button had alerted the cops. They find him outside, and shoot him in the mouth. Someone must have told them he had stolen "food." 

It is the same scapegoat. He has a different name, but not something the housed people who work "social control" care about. And it is the same SA. They arrive with guns drawn. They will torture him by destroying his ability to eat, rather than let him eat his sandwich. 

The cops didn’t tell him to take the sandwich back. They had license to shoot him because he had already been disobedient. He had disobeyed the price printed on the sandwich. That is what the SA does. When you disobey, they shoot you. 

These cops do not have weapons for their defense. No one is attacking them. But they do not just have weapons for offense. They also use their weapons for "message." 

The message is: “You want to steal food; we will make it impossible for you to eat.” It is something that only a gestapo-like contempt for people could think up. 

A militarized police is the darling of those who dream of autocratic rule. What is the dream of the Berkeley City Council that they can’t even express an opinion about the police chief’s inability to curb the militarization of his police force? When a proposal for a “no confidence” vote was put on the agenda, even though it was about opinion, they said they could not “make policy” for the police in that way. Which side are they on? 

Do you suppose that white people are treated the same way? Or did Jim Crow just change his name? (To SA?) 

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A scapegoat is a prop in a theatrical performance by a group sanctifying itself before a mirror. In the US, there are white people who use the scapegoat to purify their supremacy. The SA is a relation of force and social control between that self-sanctifying group and the props they set in that mirror for themselves. The SA tries to hide behind the rhetoric of law enforcement. But that is not what it is about. It is about weaponry, and the terror it can generate by pointing guns at people and pulling the trigger. 

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A third case, nighttime, Dec 17, 2020, 9:20 pm, a traffic stop in West Berkeley. Another black man. Another scapegoat. 

The cops flash their lights for the car to stop. It starts to stop and then doesn’t. It chugs ahead a block ot two and starts to stop again. It does all that again. Evidently, the driver had some problems with his car. Almost enough for the cops to conclude that he was trying to escape. Apparently they did. The two cops in the squadcar order him out of the car. They don’t even demand his license and registration. He’s black, so isn’t he already on the far side of the law? 

But he is a big man in a small car. He doesn’t respond quickly enough to the commands to "step out of your vehicle, sir". So they decide to pull him out. These two cops open his door and start to try to pull him out. They don’t talk to him. They yell, and curse him out. They punch him a few times. He still doesn’t get out of his car. 

What’s wrong with this picture? For some reason, every other time there is a traffic stop, the cop says, “remain in your vehicle, sir.” Not this time. Why not? Well, of course, it’s a black man. A scapegoat. They aren’t going to treat him like a person, and give him a ticket. No, they want him out of the car so they can handcuff him. This is the SA. 

But he’s bigger than the two of them can handle. More cops arrive. Eventually there were 8 cop cars on the scene. With two cops on the passenger side of the car with guns drawn, and three at the open driver’s side, they progress to the next step. Weapons. Is it finally becoming clear why the police want weapons? 

This one cop takes a long baton, and starts to hit this man. It’s as if he’s taking baseball practice. He hits the driver again, and again. They stop and try pulling him out again. Then they hit him again. When they finally get him out of the car, they throw him on the ground and handcuff him. Then they pick him up. He leans against the hood of the cop car, and starts to keel over. 

It’s the usual scene. A scapegoat, the SA, and weapons. Did someone just bring up the issue of “our democracy”? 

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There are two more incidents on the Copwatch video. One of them is a real nut case. 

A single cop is parked in a supermarket parking lot, and sees a couple of black teenagers loading stuff into a car in front of a CVS across the avenue. The car had been pulled up to the front doors, and stuff was being loaded into it. The cop decides that this is a heist in progress, drives across the avenue, and rolls up on the black teenagers loading the car. The cop then advanced on these kids with gun drawn. The driver has his hands in the air. He’s 19 years old. The cop yells a few contradictory commands, and tells the kid to get in the car. The kid finds this unexpected, but gets in the car. So there they are, some black kids in a car in front of a store and a white cop point a gun at them. 

The driver opens the door to ask something. “Stay in the car,” comes the preemptive command. The kid starts the car. The cop is looking at the plates, looking at the car, doing nothing but holding a gun on some kids. There’s no complaint; nobody from the store says anything to this cop. There had been no heist except in the cops fevered imagination. The cop is yelling to “turn off the car.” You don’t “turn off cars.” That’s an absurd expression. But the cop is yelling it anyway, louder and louder. The car starts to drive away, and the cop pumps three shots into the car, not caring that there are people in that car who could have gotten killed. 

Five felonies were committed by that cop in one short minute. The worst was shooting at a moving vehicle. But that’s the way they are trained; you see a black man, you issue commands, when they ask why, you shoot. No disagreement or non-compliance will be allowed. Back in the old days, that used to be called dictatorship. Today, with the largest prison system in the world, the US refers to it as “SWAT tactics.” And we are not allowed to call it fascist. 

Can you imagine, four instances of brutality against black people by the police in one small town of 115,000 people in one year? That would amount to 12,500 black people brutalized by the police over the whole country for that year. That wouldn’t include Latin@s, or Asians, or Native Americans. Or white people. 

All of this occurs in a society in which there are people in the streets demanding justice for the victims of police brutality. And the police response is to continue dealing with people through dehumanizing commands and a use of weapons. If people have to get out in the street in order to get justice, then there is none. If there was law enforcement, the law would be enforced, even on the cops. But the SA are not interested in law enforcement. They are interested in social control. That’s what they were interested in during the 1930s. That is what they are interested in today in Berkeley. That is what fascism means.

Contrary to the fantasy of “the shining city on the hill”, successive US administrations have delivered punishing blows to the world (Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. . ) 

Recently, President Biden released a policy position on Iran stating it is “under review” which is likely code language for a “do nothing” policy. American politics invariably play to their domestic audience and I fear Biden is already expressing weakness to deflect likely criticism from republicans. What is urgently needed is a bold policy to undo the monumental blunders of the Trump administration who reneged on the Iran nuclear accord sending a message to the world that America’s signature on international agreements is worthless. 

History is replete with examples of US presidents acting out of fear when confronted with perceived foreign or domestic threats. For example, President Johnson dispatched half a million American troops to Vietnam out of fear of being accused of being soft on communism. President George Bush and his advisors crated a catchy slogan to launch the disastrous war in Iraq and ensure Congressional acquiescence- “are you with us or against us” prompting a majority of democrats to vote for the Patriot Act and the Iraq war. The republican “Swift boat “attack dogs nearly destroyed John Kerry’s political career smearing him as a coward ignoring the fact he was a decorated war hero with 3 Purple Hearts. Israel, Saudi Arabia and their proxies in Congress will exert maximum pressure on the Biden administration to dissuade them from resurrecting the Iran nuclear accord. 

Biden and the democrats excoriated Trump for withdrawing from the JCPOA and promised to promptly rejoin the deal if elected. But Biden now appears to be hedging his position in a way that risks turning what should be an easy win for the new administration into an avoidable and tragic diplomatic failure. Unless Biden acts swiftly, the presidential elections in Iran, scheduled for June, will likely elect a hardliner making a rapport with the US extremely more difficult.Biden must, therefore, restore the nuclear Iran agreement without preconditions, lift the crippling sanctions and release $120B in frozen Iranian assets. Bernie Sanders, Biden’s competitor for the democratic nomination, simply promised, "I would re-enter the agreement on the first day of my presidency." Biden should heed Sanders' wise words.

A month into the Biden-Harris administration, we've reached an inflection point: the conclusion of Donald Trump's second impeachment trial. While there were not enough Senate votes for conviction, public sentiment turned against Trump. The outcome has consequences for Biden-Harris, Trump, and the 2022 election.

The latest ABC News/Ipsos Poll (https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/abcnews-impeachment-poll ) indicated that 58 percent of respondents felt Trump should have been convicted at the trial (84 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of Independents, and 14 percent of Republicans.) 57 Senators voted for conviction, including 7 Republicans. After the trial, Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell said: "Former President Trump's actions preceding the riot were a disgraceful dereliction of duty... There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day. The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President. And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth."

Going forward, what can we expect? 

The Biden-Harris Administration wisely got out of the way of Trump's impeachment proceedings. They should continue to do this and get on with their "to do" list: dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic, stabilizing the economy, insuring that all Americans have the right to vote, protecting the environment, rebuilding U.S. infrastructure and on and on. 

President Biden's (implicit) attitude should be "the previous President screwed up everything and I've got to work full-time to right the good ship America." That is to say, the Biden-Harris Administration shouldn't mount an additional effort to go after Trump. Nonetheless, the Federal Attorney for the District of Columbia has mounted an effort to identify and charge leaders of the January 6th insurrection; if he -- Michael Sherwin or his successor -- finds sufficient evidence to charge Trump, then he should do this. 

Donald Trump has lost momentum. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election by 7 million votes (in the election, 37 percent of voters identified as Democrats, 36 percent as Republicans, and 26 percent as Independent; Biden got 94 percent of Democratic votes, 6 percent of Republican votes, and 54 percent of Independent votes.) Since then, Trump hasn't done anything positive to increase his base of support. As he left office, Trump's approval rating was at 29 percent (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/20/how-we-know-the-drop-in-trumps-approval-rating-in-january-reflected-a-real-shift-in-public-opinion/ ). A recent poll indicated that 26 percent of Republicans want Trump to get out of politics (https://www.newsweek.com/majority-americans-want-trump-completely-removed-politics-poll-finds-1569156). 

Like a wounded bear, Trump has retreated to his cave -- Mar-a-Lago. A charismatic leader in hiding. 

The 2022 election: Most Republicans believe Trump will emerge from his Florida cave and be a factor in the 2022 midterm election. Nonetheless, it's unlikely Donald will ever again have the power he had when he occupied the White House. Over time his influence will diminish. 

1.Trump needs media attention. At the moment, he doesn't have it and is unlikely to get it soon. From the moment Trump announced his presidential candidacy -- June 16, 2015 -- he got slavish media attention; that lasted for five and a half years. In the White House, Trump had press briefings -- stopping on November 3, 2020 -- and daily Twitter bursts -- stopping on January 8, 2021. (It appears that Donald has been permanently banned from Twitter.) 

Over the next few months, Trump's lack of media attention will erode his base support. 

2. Trump has no base outside the Republican Party. (Where roughly 70 percent support him.) The 2020 election proved a candidate cannot win a national race without garnishing support outside his Party. 

Trump's reduced base is a long-term impediment to his dream of regaining power. And a problem for the Republican Party in general. 

3. At the moment, Trump is the Republican "kingmaker." For most political contests, Donald can determine who the Republican candidate will be. If a 2022 GOP candidate is deemed to not be sufficiently "Trumpian," Trump can decree that that candidate be primaried. For example, Alaska Republican Senator Murkowski voted for Trump's conviction on February 12th. She's running for reelection in 2022. In the Alaska Republican primary, Trump will support someone to run against her. 

Nonetheless, in most states, Trump's kingmaker influence will have limited utility. In a few overwhelmingly Republican state, such as Alabama, Trump's anointed candidate will win the general election. In the most competitive states, Trump's imprimatur won't be the determining factor. For example, in 2022, Republican Senate seats are up in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In these states Trump can determine who the Republican candidate will be, but that candidate will not be able to win unless they attract Independent votes. "Trumpism," alone, won't help these candidates win. 

4. Unless you are a Trump devotee, "Trumpism" is associated with failure. Donald Trump is stained by his inability to deal with the Coronavirus pandemic and his traitorous leadership of the January 6th insurrection. For the electorate, in general, being Trump's anointed candidate is not a good thing. That suggests that to the extent 2022 Republican candidates are Trump acolytes, the GOP is heading for defeat. 

5. In 2022, being Trump's anointed candidate won't guarantee you a surge of GOP votes. In 2020, Republicans got an unexpectedly large turnout -- 74 million votes (the largest for a losing presidential candidate). For this reason, Republicans expect to have a similar surge in 2022. That's overly optimistic. The surprising 2020 GOP turnout was due to Trump's presence on the ballot. He won't be on the ballot in 2022 and many Trump loyalists won't turn out. 

Furthermore, in 2020 the traditional Democratic ground game was neutered because of the pandemic. That won't be the case in 2022. 

6. Going forward, Trump will not be an effective leader of the Republican Party because he is too self absorbed. Trump has only effectively campaigned for himself; he has no track record of directly helping other Republicans. He wasn't effective in 2018; Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives. In 2020, Trump wasn't effective in Georgia's January 4th special Senate elections. 

7. Trump doesn't stand for anything. "Make America great again" has morphed into "Make Donald Trump great again." In 2022, that's not going to help most Republican candidates. 

In 2016, Trump had a limited policy agenda: immigration ("build the wall"), clean up Washington ("drain the swamp"), and (amazingly) bring competence to the White House ("I'm a successful CEO"). In 2021, Trump has no policy agenda; he has grievances: "the election was stolen;" "the deep state conspired against me;" "Mitch McConnell betrayed me," etcetera. Therefore, in 2022, when Trump supports a Republican candidate, he will support them on the basis of their support for Donald Trump not their positions on particular issues. That's not a winning combination. 

Summary: Donald Trump has been diminished. Nonetheless, he continues to be a power within the Republican Party. That's a problem for Republicans, not for Democrats. 

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