Every high school student and every adult needs to understand two facts: 

1. At the United Nations Conference Parties, meeting 26, in Glasgow which is going on right now, and which is widely reported, the scientists have confirmed what we already know, namely this:

2. On Thursday, November 4, 2021, the majority of City Council members affirmed that they do not consider the climate emergency to be among even their top 5 priorities.

1. On November 3, NASA announced its projection that because no action is being taken to address the climate emergency seriously, significant reductions in crop yields in the United States and globally are imminent. Corn yields may fall by as much as 24% in only 8 years from today, likely triggering food security problems globally.
2. Excluding from an emissions inventory accounting trick that did not actually reduce emissions, the City of Berkeley has never taken any action to reduce emissions as needed, although Council Members regularly spread lies to the contrary.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This morning’s New York Times had an opinion piece by Serge Schmemann on its front page rehashing the ongoing speculation about what’s being called the “Havana Syndrome”, a mysterious collection of unpleasant symptoms which has afflicted U.S. diplomatic staff in embassies around the world, starting first in Havana in 2016. As it happens, the Planet’s longstanding “On Mental Health” columnist had just forwarded to me a piece he wrote which appeared in Street Spirit in July of 2007. Let’s say it’s at least a surprising coincidence—but have the muckety-mucks in Washington who are supposed to be investigating the Havana Syndrome ever heard of this? 

The manufacturer can’t deny that the device is easily convertible into an implement of torture. And I think it is doubtful as to whether it doesn’t penetrate into the bodily organs. If the device did penetrate into the body, either by normal operation or by malfunction, it would be an extreme threat to unborn children. This is aside from being a maiming device for adult people.  

Raytheon is planning to sell a version of this to law enforcement and security agencies for use here in the United States in a similar manner as the Stun Gun. The other version is vehicle mounted and is intended for use in Iraq.  

From Streets to Ballot Box: Berkeley Politics in the 1970s, Selections from the David Mundstock Collection
November 6, 2021 - April 9, 2022

The public is invited to two events this weekend, one in person and one online:
Saturday, November 6, 2 to 4 pm: See the exhibit on its opening day and meet and congratulate the curators: Jeanine Castello-Lin, Lincoln Cushing, William Roberts, Tama Spencer, Tonya Staros, and Charles Wollenberg.
Sunday, November 7, 3 to 4:30 pm: Panel presentation by Shirley Dean, Loni Hancock, Gus Newport, and Marty Schiffenbauer. (Please sign up with a donation of any amount on Eventbrite.)
 

"Almost sacred," was one California Historic Resources Commissioner's reflection on the 6-0-0 affirmative vote to recommend the eligibility of People's Park for federal recognition on Friday, October 29th, 2021. Another commissioner expressed concern about the University of California's leadership given their inability to recognize the Park's obvious cultural significance, while another reminisced about where they were and how old they were when the headlines around the world when the national guard was sent to Berkeley and CS gas wafted across the campus. 

The more important element at the California Historic Resources Commission was the almost casual notation that while the University of California had registered an objection to the proposal for federal recognition, it is not a private owner, but rather a public trust. The democratic balance so missing in the university's and regents' world was, for a brief moment, restored. All the voices, voices from Chicago, West Virginia, and of course our most respected historians, activists, musicians, and gardeners, finally had the chance denied them so far by the City of Berkeley and the University of California to reiterate the application's powerful elements, a successful project taking over two years to research and present. 

This is the moment when those who cherish peace, open space, the raptors overhead and the roots beneath, to renew their plea for Berkeley's leadership to recognize that Berkeley needs to rethink its negligence of People's Park, an internationally recognized - and our town's most famous - landmark. The world finds obvious what your Berkeley City Council representative is for some reason afraid to say, that this "almost sacred" Ohlone land and its hallowed stage has seen enough war. Use your voices, your songs, and your heart to save the place that helped launch dozens of the most respected tangible movements of our time, the garden that stopped a war.

“The United State foreign policy is being articulated with emphasis on diplomacy including gaining international support to ensure that the Iranian nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.This is different than the previous administration. 

I was asked many years ago (before the Fall of the Berlin Wall) about the pillars of the United States policy toward the Middle East. At that time the following elements were cited: ensuring the continuing supply of oil and petroleum products from the Middle East to the United States, it’s Western allies and Japan without sudden changes in oil prices; preventing the former Soviet Union from having a foothold in the area; ensuring continuous military and economic support for Israel; and helping pro- Western states in the region. 

The Middle East today is different than then particularly after the dismantlement of the former Soviet Union, and the political change in Iran. The recent developments in Afghanistan have impacted the Middle East, and would bring new ideas about dealing with international crises.  

Furthermore, the United States ability to invent technologies to increase domestic oil production and becoming self-sufficient in oil and petroleum products have changed the situation. Though the United States is still concerned about the global energy questions since many American based oil companies are directly involved in the International oil business as well as the great impact of oil and petroleum products on the global economy, not withstanding that the world is moving toward environmentally sound green energy. In addition , there were changes in many governments in the Middle East particularly in Iran, Afghanistan and after the Arab Spring. The latter represented Arab popular demands for democracy, respect for human rights and decent government. 

The United States policy under President Joe Biden is concentrating on China particularly to prevent the latter from controlling the South China Sea, and threatening Taiwan and other states in the region. Nevertheless, the United States still considers the threat of the terrorist organizations Al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State as a major concern, and devotes resources to face this threat in the Middle East and beyond.  

The United States is still determined to ensure Israel superiority in the Middle East, however, President Joe Biden spoke about resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict peacefully and on the basis of two-state solution in the Holy Land: Israel and Palestine. In the meantime, the United States is working to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. 

The United States is also determined, and work with its allies to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. 

It is hoped and expected that the Biden Administration will prioritize the questions of supporting democracy and respect for human rights in the Middle East. These lofty goals will contribute to a just and peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of two-state solution in the Holy Land: Israel and Palestine with Jerusalem as the symbol of peace and cooperation among religions. 

I have been following many of your opinion pieces on homelessness and particularly liked your latest. Something must be done to stop the way the unhoused are cruelly treated and often abandoned. 

I live very close to People's Park in Berkeley, in an apartment house that was built in 1907. It had 11 apartments and two large commercial spaces that occupied the ground floor. In 2012 it was purchased by an LLC and now only three rent-controlled apartments are occupied. The whole downstairs, where the stores were, and the other apartments, as they became unoccupied, were gutted. 

This scenario has played out all over Berkeley. Old apartment houses have been purchased by LLCs, foreign investors, speculators or developers, and have been allowed to deteriorate or have been left unoccupied or minimally occupied. We, in our building, have had ceilings crumble over us, water damage our belongings in closets, electrical shorts obliterate electronic equipment - you name it. We are all elderly or disabled, have lived here for 30 years and can't afford to move due to the expense. We also know that if we left here, we might join the homeless. 

The tenants here allowed a homeless woman, who was disabled and alone, to encamp in a sheltered unused doorway of our apartment house, on the residential street, for two years. We notified the landlord about a month after she was here and he agreed, with the provision that she make herself portable, so that the empty downstairs could be accessed, if needed. Various neighbors, students, clinic personnel, etc. became friends with her and made her little encampment more secure. The City never placed her in housing. 

About a week ago, the landlord of this building received a Notice of Violation Blight from the City of Berkeley and was told that he had two weeks from the date of the letter to remove the tent, tarp, wooden pallet, chair and a few small objects from in front of the apartment house. If he did not do so, fines would be levied against him and possibly a lien on the property. The woman who lived basically on the street, took down everything a couple of days ago and left the premise, so as to not put the landlord in an untenable position.  

Berkeley has a policy where they give notice to an unhoused person before attempting to remove them and their possessions. They also have to offer the person an alternative place to stay. It is up to the person to accept or decline. This new use of the Notice of Violation Blight, skirts the policy of noticing and offering alternatives to the person. The City puts the pressure on the owner of the property via fines and liens and they do not have to properly notice or offer alternative housing to the person displaced. 

I find this skirting of procedural protections for the unhoused underhanded. You end up with a middle age woman living alone on the streets, sidewalks, parks, or underpasses and the City has achieved their objective. The person, however, has no housing or safety, but we now have a doorway to nowhere that is available.

As an appeals court in London is deciding whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to the United States for publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes. Assange faces up to 175 years in prison under the Espionage Act for publishing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a sham political trial, a punitive attempt by the British government to try and punish Assange on behalf of the United States.  

It is appalling that the British government should buckle under such threats. The messenger, exposing US war crimes MUST NOT BE PUNISHED The hearing comes just weeks after Yahoo News revealed the CIA had considered assassinating or kidnapping Assange. Could this have possibly resulted in a shootout between British police and US CIA/military assassins? This speaks volumes of the declining mafia mindset of the US government. 

The British government has also come under fire for incarcerating an ailing Assange in a top-security prison, Belmarsh. Calls for Julian Assange to be freed are growing. Earlier this month, 25 civil society groups wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding extradition proceedings be dropped. The groups include Amnesty International, the ACLU, Reporters Without Borders and the Electronic Freedom Foundation. As the hearing got underway Wednesday, the International Federation of Journalists, representing more than half a million reporters worldwide, ran a full-page advertisement in the print edition of The Times of London that said, “Media freedom is suffering lasting damage by the continued prosecution of Julian Assange.” 

Finally, we must remember the critical role played by release of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg exposing the war crimes committed by US soldiers in Vietnam bringing an abrupt cessation of hostilities saving thousands of lives. Ellsberg faced similar daunting risks but was not hounded by the US government. Let us hope the British government resists mounting US pressure and releases Assange from Belmarsh immediately.

The California State Historical Resources Commission voted unanimously on Friday to recommend that Berkeley’s People’s Park be listed on the National Register of Historical Places. The nomination now moves to the Keeper of the Register for final approval within the next 45 days.

Harvey Smith, President of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group (PPHDAG) said, “We were very happy that the commissioners understood the important historical and cultural legacy of the Park and acknowledged the loss of life during the struggle for the Park. The commission recognized the park's importance in the great social and political movements of the 1960s and Berkeley's extraordinary role in the history of that decade."

Last month the UC Regents approved a plan to build a massively out of scale and out of context 12 story student dormitory. Several historic preservation experts submitted comments that the project would seriously degrade the Park’s historic and cultural values and the cultural values of the surrounding historic environment, which includes famous buildings by Bernard Maybeck, Julia Morgan and Walter Ratcliff. The adjacent Anna Head School was Berkeley’s very first brown shingle structure, and it would be overshadowed by the project 

Make UC a Good Neighbor and PPHDAG filed suit against the UC Regents the day before, on Thursday, 28 October, alleging that the plan failed to meet the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), including appropriate examination of historical resource impacts, growth of student population, displacement of existing Berkeley residents, and severe noise impacts. 

The two groups previously filed suit against the Regents after they adopted an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Berkeley campus Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) in July of 2021. The groups allege that the LRDP EIR insufficiently analyzes the environmental impact of UC’s proposal for massive growth in students, staff and buildings. 

The two groups filed the second suit on Thursday after proposing reasonable settlement terms to UC in order to mitigate the impact of its growth on the local community. Proposed terms included maintaining People’s Park as a much-needed open space, a cap on student enrollment at 43,000, the level of 2020-21, a binding legal commitment to construct at least 9,000 beds in order to house the 11,000 additional students added over the past 12 years, siting undergraduate housing away from existing residential neighborhoods, and committing to build only on UC owned property. 

The two groups also asked for the establishment of a community process for ensuring that there is cultural, historical and aesthetic compatibility of all new UC construction undertaken off the Campus Park. Many of the settlement terms have been implemented at other campuses, but UC Berkeley refused each and every one. 

Smith added, “CEQA requires that UC mitigate the impacts of its massive growth on the community. It is unfortunate that UC continues to dismiss community concerns, leaving us no recourse but to file these lawsuits.”

Paranoid thoughts are sometimes correct, and you can not always assume that the world is friendly. In fact, there are threats, there are threatening people, and people, deep down, are not always good. If the mental health treatment system teaches that we should always trust people, this is only for purposes of making us manageable. If we are to survive and prosper, we must be able to handle some amount of the nitty gritty of life. This means that we cannot always be naive.

It is not a safe bet that people are always telling you the truth. And liars are often very good at what they do. This includes pathological liars. They can get you to believe all kinds of things that aren't accurate.

People who work in law enforcement lie for purposes of gaining evidence against you. And if they can get a confession under the guise that you won't be in trouble if you tell them everything, then it is only appropriate that you get locked up because you are a dummy.

However, there is a reason that the word "paranoid" exists. That's where we've gone a bit too far in the instinct to protect ourselves from a perceived or imagined threat. When the perception of threat is always in charge, the accuracy of our thoughts will be less. If we can learn to be more conscious of our thoughts, perhaps with no particular rule of how and what to think, we will be better off. 

Relearning how to think includes unlearning. If we can unlearn habits of thought that got us into trouble, we may be able to avoid taking the actions that got us into trouble. And getting into trouble is a common reason for winding up as a "client" in the mental health treatment system. 

We must trust some of the people some of the time. One strategy for knowing who to trust is to test the waters. I've done this. In therapy I inadvertently said to a therapist something that made it sound like I'd been doing something illegal. Later, the therapist asked for an extra detail about that. It was enough to make me realize that this therapist was gathering evidence against me. At that point, the individual was no longer a therapist. 

The mental health treatment system is not always your friend. Yet, we must trust them to some extent, and we do not necessarily have a choice about this. 

Things are complicated and they do not follow a simple set of rules. We must retune the thinking to accommodate realities that are complex. Sometimes I wonder whether people question where a schizophrenic man gains the ability to be a semiprofessional author. In my past, people attributed either being a dummy or being a "space case." (Apologies if that is an offensive term--it is used widely, and I would never apply it to anyone personally.) 

Revising the thinking means to me that you learn to track reality most of the time. Tracking reality is a matter of following it as it meanders and twists, like a stream through rough, bumpy mountain terrain. Does the universe operate in straight lines as though it was a subject of high school Geometry? No, of course it doesn't. The universe, if anything, operates with chaos. If this was not so, why would the Dinosaur Age have been obliterated, [scientists think] due to a collision of a large object from space, with the Earth? Have you seen any dinosaurs lately? 

On October 27, 2021, Israel approved about 3,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a day after the United States issued its strongest rebuke yet of such construction. These are the first settlements approved under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett who succeeded Benjamin Netanyahu in June. 

As of May 2021, there are between 600,000 and 750,000 Israeli settlers living in at least 250 illegal settlements (130 official, 120 unofficial) in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem Israeli land grabs are expected to continue. Israel is slowly nibbling in small increments the territory claimed for a Palestinian state -- death by a thousand cuts.  

Although, successive Israeli governments have expanded settlements, making an internationally backed two-state solution — a state of Palestine arising alongside Israel — increasingly unlikely, which I suspect is one of the goals of Israeli settlement building.

Tell the Great Pumpkin It's Time to Squash Louis DeJoy

I recently waited five weeks for a birthday gift to travel from VA to CA and—in the end—the USPS lost it. They promised an "investigation" that would take "60 days."

It doesn't take an investigation to see what's wrong here—it's Postmonster General Louis DeJoy. Let's give Trump's Postmaster General the boot. Cancel him! Stamp him out! And, if you feel like sending a message to the White House, here's an Action Network link that will insure your message gets delivered while saving you postage. 

Trigger Tweet 

On October 28, a Tweet from CodePink (citing an article from Defense One) raised concerns about the global Climate Conference in Galsgow. The headline read: "US Defense Officials Will Not Attend Global Climate Conference." CodePink's response:
"#Pentagon blows #COP26! The world's single largest institutional consumer of oil & emitter of GHGs a no-show on world stage. Yo Let's rethink this." 

This call to involve Pentagon officials in the critical climate negotiations prompted a response from David Swanson, Executive Director of World BEYOND War:
"Respectfully do not want them anywhere near it." 

I backed up Swanson's tweet on behalf of my organization, Environmentalists Against War, writing:
"Same here. Militaries have no business meddling in affairs of state—let alone global agreements. The Pentagon's a perp not a partner. Call the COPs." 

Swanson's response: 

"Right on. And the Tesla tank they rode in on." 

Fill Up My Tank, Lieutenant 

It's true. The Pentagon wants to build electric tanks for its future foreign invasions. It's a matter of economy, not environment. We're running out of oil and that's no small matter when a US armored division powered by huge, 1,500-horsepower engines can easily burn to 500,000 gallons of fuel a day. 

In 2020, the German firm Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft debuted an eight-wheeled, all-electric battle-tank prototype. The Pentagon has also toyed with the idea of solar-powered tanks. 

If Tesla were to step up with an electric tank design, there's a good chance Elon Musk might want to include a self-driving option. And that's just what we don't need. It's bad enough that we have remote-controlled "assassination drones." The last thing we need is remotely controlled—or, worse, autonomous—"killer tanks" roaming through contested cities blasting other vehicles to flaming bits and bombing buildings into smoking rubble. 

There's another problem with electric tanks, and it's semantic: If you're running low on electricity on the battlefield, the last thing you want to yell is "Charge!" 

Two Overlooked Climate Change Challenges: Animals and Armies 

With COP26, the most consequential climate change conference in world history, getting underway in Glasgow, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions is not on the agenda. Billie Eilish and other celebrities, along with Humane Society International, are calling on the United Nations to acknowledge the role of Animal Agriculture (aka "Meat Farming") in global climate change.  

The message to the COP26 delegations in Scotland is simple: "It will be impossible to meet the Paris Agreement without fixing our global animal agricultural system!" 

For more details on how Meat Farming pollutes the planet—and, more importantly, how alternatives like Agroecology can greatly reduce pollution and restore natural systems—see Fritjof Kapra's article, recently reposted on Environmentalists Against War. 

Spelling It Out: GLOBALWARming 

Meanwhile, there's another Climate Chaos problem—an intentional, self-imposed blindspot regarding the role of military pollution in fueling climate change. The long-suppressed fact is this: The Pentagon is a major driver of climate change. The truth has been staring us in the face. Literally. Let's spell it out: "Global War is the Major Part of GLOBALWARming." 

That's why more that 400 national and international organizations and 20,000 people from around the planet will be presenting the COP26 delegates with a petition "Demanding that Military Pollution Be Included in Climate Agreements." The event will be broadcast live as a Facebook Event. 

As World BEYOND War's David Swanson notes: "The world is all gathering to impose limits on greenhouse gas emissions that make an exception for militaries. Why? What possible excuse is there for that, unless killing people in the short-term is so important to us that we’re willing to kill everyone in the long-term. We need to speak up for life, and soon.” 

“War and militarism are amongst the unnamed enemies of our ecosphere,” says Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition. “The US military is the biggest single consumer of oil on the planet, and the last two decades of war have polluted on an almost unimaginable scale. It is a scandal that military emissions are being excluded from the discussion. If we want to end warming we need to end war.” 

“War is obsolete. There is no doubt, the quicker we get rid of it, the quicker we improve the climate,” adds Tim Pluta, World BEYOND War Chapter Organizer in Asturias, Spain. David Swanson provides more details on the problem in this video:
 

Up in Arms (and Fists): Up in the Air 

Reports of aggression-in-the-air seems to be trending as steadily as school shootings on the ground. It's just another week in America—the Land of the Feared and the Home of the Depraved. Turn on the evening news and, right behind the latest update on COVID vaccines, there's a report featuring cell-phone footage of some unruly airline passenger protesting mask-wearing rules by tossing punches as flight attendants and other passengers try to restrain him. And, yes, it's always a "him"—usually some beefy-looking anti-vaxxer with a short haircut. 

While women may cast an angry look at bad behavior it's the men who come out swinging. And so the evening newscasts have assembled their vast media resources to bring us the latest installment of "The In-flight Fight of the Night." 

Question: If the plane's captain announces a "loss of cabin pressure," will these die-hard anti-vaxxers refuse to wear the oxygen masks? 

The Great Divide-and-Conquer 

The equality gap in the US is worse than ever. More people are becoming impatient with empty "trickle down" promises and starting to focus more on the foibles of the tax-avoiding super-rich. The Corporate Deep-State—Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Banks, etc—is being subjected to growing scrutiny by journalists and whistleblowers who are exposing legacies of long-standing lies, abuses, evasions, and fabrications. Even the millions spent on Congressional lobbying have failed to mute rising calls for reform—with proposals including increased corporate tax rates, a "Billionaires Tax," and other financial refinements designed to "Make the Rich Pay Their Fair Share." 

So what can the Barons of Wall Street and the Minions of the Military-Industrial Complex do to avoid a class-reckoning? Well, one longstanding option to prevent the rise of Popular Democracy is to stage a Corporate Coup—replacing a crippled, restive, and barely functioning democracy with a flat-out fascist take-over. That's the cure that Trump offers—and it's the Kool-Aid that a majority of Republicans appear ready to swallow. 

The tools for seizing power rely on a simple, road-tested strategy—"divide and conquer." If the majority of Americans can be persuaded to turn on one another, they won't have time to train an eagle eye on the illegal lies of the super-rich. Just stir up a "culture war" to pit the Red Team against the Blue Team and neither contingent will have time to focus on their common enemy—the Gold Team. 

That's why conservative social media and Faux News operatives stirred up the false vaccination scares, demonized "critical race theory," and pilloried the "cancel culture." And that's where Superman comes in. 

Short of the US flag, few other icons are as sacrosanct than the all-American Clark Kent and his muscular, caped alter-ego. But recently, the Man of Steel has become the "Man of Steal." Instead of standing for "Truth, Justice and the American Way," Superman's motto has been rewritten to replace "the American Way" with a more subversive, neo-socialist pledge dedicated to delivering "A Better Tomorrow." 

In the fifth issue of the DC Comic featuring the adventures of Superboy Jon Kent (the child of Clark Kent and Lois Lane), Jon comes out as gay and declares his love for a male reporter named Jay Nakamura. Clearly, The Forces Who Would Destroy America have delivered a divisive masterstroke by showing our Next Generation Superman coming out of the closet (instead of coming out of his dad's telephone booth). 

What next? Will the Far Faux Right start a rumor that Biden's Socialist Government wants to declare the Statue of Liberty to be a gender non-conforming monument? 

The Copper Vs. Rapper Gas-Station Shooting 

At first hearing, the news that a retired police chief had shot and killed a would-be robber during a brazen mid-day robbery attempt at a gas station, sounded like a bloody instance of "just deserts." But was it justice? 

When I first heard the radio report, my initial response was: "They got what they deserved." But when I watched the surveillance video, my assessment changed. The three assailants successfully robbed Joyner (somehow failing to discover that he was carrying a handgun). Did they brandish weapons during the robbery? Quite likely. But who fired the first shot? 

It was retired police captain Ersie Joyner, who fired the first shot, killing robber Desoni Djuan Lamar Gardner, a Vallejo rapper. After shooting Gardner, Joyner took it upon himself to pursue the other two robbers—opening fire on them as they were attempting to flee. One of the fleeing felons ("reasonably believing he was in imminent danger of being killed" opened fire, wounding Joyner. 

This seems to be standard "cop practice": If you try to run from a cop, he or she has the right to shoot you—in the back, if necessary. That mandate is enshrined in policing's best-known phrase—"Stop or I'll shoot!" 

So was Joyner in the right or in the wrong? Well, in 2020, Assembly Bill 392 tightened rules for police use-of-force, permitting the use of firearms only "when an officer reasonably believed it was necessary to prevent death or serious injury." As the Chronicle's Rachel Swan reported, regarding the Joyner case: "Under California law, a person can claim self-defense in a killing if they reasonably believed they or someone else were in imminent danger of being slain or badly injured, or that they were in danger of becoming the victim of forcible crimes such as robbery or rape." 

But making it legal to take someone's life for attempting to steal someone's cash, places a greater value on possessing property than it does on clinging to existence. This is not surprising in a country founded on privileging ownership. The same rule applies to burglaries in which homeowners have the right to kill an unarmed intruder discovered on the wrong side of the front door, so long as they "reasonably believe" an intruder is intent on stealing something—cash, jewels, electronic gear. 

There is another question that intrigues me. What prompted these three men to target Joyner—not in the dark of night and well out of public sight—but while he was filling his car at a popular gas station in the middle of the day? 

I can't help but wonder if there was a "cannabis angle" to the crime. Joyner was known to have embarked on a new career as an investor in the cannabis industry. Because federal laws prevent banks from doing business with members of the weed scene, it is common knowledge that pot shops and their personnel are forced to stockpile large amounts of unbanked Benjamins in-house and on-person. Could this have provided the impetus for Joyner being targeted in this brazen—and ultimately bloody—heist-gone-wrong? 

Forget What Tony the Tiger Says: Kellogg's Policies Aren't So Grrrreat 

The workers' solidarity group, More Perfect Union (MPU), is posting a petition targeting the Kellogg's corporation for forcing employees to work excessive, unpaid hours. Kellogg’s has a policy of compelling employees to “volunteer” for overtime, "7 days a week, with inconsistent scheduling forcing 24-hour availability." 

Kellogg's is a "cereal offender" whose CEO, Steven Kahillane, exploits workers by instituting a "second-class" status for "transitional" employees who have to work for less pay ($12 an hour), with no paid sick leave, no paid healthcare, no paid vacations and no pension benefits. 

Things are so bad that this week, President Biden’s Secretary of Labor, Marty Walsh (a 32-year member of Laborers Local 223 in Boston), joined Kellogg’s workers on a picket line—the first time any Labor Secretary has ever joined a group of striking workers. 

MPU has created a petition that will send a protest letter right to Kahillane's in-box. Just click here. My message to Kahillane was a simple one: "Marty Walsh speaks for me. Respect your workers. It's crunch time, Kellogg's. Don't be flakey!" 

The majority of the Berkeley City Council and the Planning Commission have approved countless new market-rate residential development projects over the past ten years, but these have included only a tiny fraction of units designated for below median income. 

The BART parking lots present an opportunity, that must NOT be lost, to dedicate these public spaces to the segment of our population that has lost housing or been priced out of housing, sometimes homes passed on for generations. 

It is past time for the city to figure out how to facilitate the work of non-profit developers of median and low income housing, as you did with the Berkeley Way project. As the Episcopal Church did with the Oxford & Cedar Street project. I once thought inclusive development projects were the best solution, but much too little low-income housing has come from the few in-lieu projects that have been built. The aggressive developer lobby has succeeded over and over again in Berkeley to ensure the highest profits for developers, without regard to our real needs. 

It is time for the council majority to defend the needs of the Berkeley community for median to low-income housing and family housing. That means zoning as recommended by Berkeley Planning staff for a maximum height of 7 stories and a maximum of 4.2 floor/areas ratio, a maximum 75 units per acre. We don’t want to see Berkeley further manhattanized. Berkeley families need affordable housing with open space for children and for everyone’s mental health. 

We need housing design that meets the most rigorous energy efficiency standards and that achieves Net Zero energy. 

Please work to represent the needs of Berkeley residents, not the interests of for-profit developers.

Noting:

Monday the Council Public Safety meeting is at 10:30 am and includes discriminatory reports, ALPR and restoring red light cameras. Agenda Committee planning for 11-16-21 council meeting is at 2:30. Peace of Justice at 7 pm has Rights of Nature on the agenda (council killed the referral last Tuesday). Kesarwani and Saltzman at North Berkeley BART at 5:30 – 6:30 pm.

Tuesday Council meets in closed session at 4 pm on the Leonard Powell lawsuit in superiorcourt. PAB Subcommittee on regulations meets at 6:30 pm.

Wednesday the Council Budget Committee meets at 10 am. BOLT is at 6:30 pm. The Disability Commission meets at 6 pm with full agenda on accessible housing, Leonard Powell displacement, elevator ordinance. The Independent Redistricting meets at 6 pm – there is still time to submit your proposal for the new council district boundaries deadline November 15. The Planning Commission public hearing on the BART Station Housing Projects is at 7 pm – this looks to be the final meeting on zoning amendments and EIR.

Thursday the Land Use Committee takes up streamlining ADU permitting and toxic remediation. LPC meets at 7 pm. Public Works has not published the links or agenda – deadline for posting is Monday. WETA meets at 1 pm with item 9 on the agenda is the Berkeley Pier/Fair study and Ferry Service Business Plan Update.



The November 9 council agenda is posted at the bottom and available for comment. Note items moved to November 9 from last council meeting which ran until after midnight: 20. Objective standards, density, design, shadows (with an absence of residential neighborhood solar protections), 21. Marina hotel tax (will tax go to the Marina or general fund), 22. Officeholder accounts and 23. free Sunday AC transit are on the agenda under ACTION. 

Sunday, October 31, 2021 – Halloween - No City meetings or events found 

Monday, November 1, 2021 

City Council Public Safety Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89051605410 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 890 5160 5410 

AGENDA: 2. Presentation by Fire Dept evacuation plan, 3. Harrison, co-sponsor Hahn – Ordinance Prohibiting Discriminatory reports to law enforcement and refer to CM to report to council within 6 months anonymized data and information regarding discriminatory reports to law enforcement, 4. Taplin, co-sponsor Droste, Wengraf – Budget referral: automated license plate readers for community safety, 5. Taplin – Restoration of Red Light Camera Program. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Public_Safety.aspx 

Agenda and Rules Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86588827250 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 8882 7250 

AGENDA: Public Comment on non-agenda and items 2 – 7, 2. Review and approve draft agenda for 11-16-2021 (full agenda follows list of meetings by day of the week or use link). 3. Berkeley considers, 4. Adjournments in memory, 5. Council worksessions, 6. Referrals for scheduling, 7. Land use calendar, REFERRED ITEMS for REVIEW: 8. Impact of COVID on meetings, 9. Return to in-person meetings, 10. Discussion of changes to fules of procedure for budget referral, UNSCHEDULED ITEMS: 11. Strengthening and supporting city commissions. 

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

Peace and Justice Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88352159324 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 88352159324 

AGENDA: 7. Rights of Nature, 8. Resolution to Council on Surveillance Ordinance, 9. Resolution on Immigration Reform, 10. Potential letter to BUSD Board and/or Council on commission reorganization elimination of BUSD appointments. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=13054 

Councilmember Kesarwani with BART Board Director Rebecca Saltzman at 5:30 – 6:30 pm 

In-person at North Berkeley BART Station to meet with public on BART Station Housing Plan 

Tuesday, November 2, 2021 

City Council Closed Session at 4 pm, 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89269037403 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 892 6903 7403 

AGENDA: 1. Conference with legal counsel – existing or anticipated litigation, The People of the State of California v. Leonard Felton Powell CA Superior Court RG 15762567. 

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

Police Accountability Board Regulations Subcommittee at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82281228507# 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 822 8122 8507 

AGENDA: 4. Continue drafting regulations. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=162752 

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 

City Council Budget & Finance Committee at 10 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83144440922 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 831 4444 0922 

AGENDA: 2. Harrison, co-sponsor Bartlett - Budget Referral and Resolution establishing a pilot of building electrification installation incentives and just transition program with pre-qualified contractors meeting minimum labor standards to assist new property owners, renters and existing property owners with transition to zero-carbon buildings, 3. Cash v. Accrual Basis Accounting, 4. Discussion and development of criteria and timing for AAO Process. UNSCHEDULED: 5. Review of Council Fiscal Policies. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Budget___Finance.aspx 

Board of Library Trustees at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86042306505 (showing as expired) 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 860 4230 6505 

AGENDA: B. FY 2022 Budget Amendment (AAO), C. Budget Priorities for FY 2023 & 2024, D. Initiation of RFP to hire consultant to support strategic planning. 

https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/about/board-library-trustees 

Commission on Disability at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82676648116?pwd=S05WZHBQVkF0Z0ZWTlJ1L3EzSVEwdz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 826 7664 8116 Passcode: 786788 

AGENDA: Action Items: 1. Elevator Ordinance, 2. Vacancies, Discussion Items: 1. Presentation Infrastructure Bond, 2. Escooters and Ebikes, 3. Southside complete streets project, 4. Leonard Powell Displacement Issue, 5. Disaster Preparedness, 6. Accessible Housing Update, 7. Housing Element Update, 8. Elevator Ordinance Update, 9. Ethnicity & Disability Statistics of People who have contracted COVID in Berkeley. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_Disability_Homepage.aspx 

Independent Redistricting Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86592119245 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 9211 9245 

AGENDA: 2. Review of Community Interest Form Submissions, 3. Review of Map Submissions, 4. Appointment At-Large Alternate Commissioner, Subcommittee Reports: 5. Map and Community Interest, 6. Community Outreach. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/irc/ 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/redistricting/ 

Planning Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85938976960 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 859 3897 6960 

AGENDA: 4. Future Agenda Items, 9. Public Hearing: Ashby and North Berkeley BART conduct public hearing and (1) adopt Zoning Ordinance and Map amendments, (2) Adopt City and BART Joint Vision and Priorities Document and (3) Certify Draft EIR and make recommendation to council,  

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Planning_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Thursday, November 4, 2021 

City Council Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81911497834 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 819 1149 7834 

AGENDA: 2. Kesarwani, co-sponsors Wengraf, Droste, Bartlett – Refer to CM to Streamline ADU permit review and approval process UNSCHEDULED: 3. Harrison - Amend Short term rental ordinance, 4. Taplin - Refer to CM Streamline Toxic Remediation in Manufacturing Districts. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Land_Use,_Housing___Economic_Development.aspx 

Housing Advisory Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83921571130 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 839 2157 1130 

AGENDA: 5. Recommend a substantial amendment to the PY 2021 Annual Action Plan to accept the HOME-ARP funds for a Project HomeKey, 6. Housing Trust Fund Subcommittee’s Funding Recommendations for 2021 Housing Trust Fund Request Proposals, 7. Adopt funding recommendations for 2021 Educator Housing Notice of Funding Availability. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Housing_Advisory_Commission/ 

Landmarks Preservation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84250993809 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 842 5099 3809 

AGENDA: 5. 2601 Warring - CA school for Deaf & Blind/Clark Kerr Campus pending development, seismic improvements on UC owned City landmark 

6. 2212 Fifth – Landmark or Structure of Merit Designation, residential property 

7. Draft EIR for North Berkeley & Ashby BART station re-zoning 

8. 2345 Channing – provide advisory comments on design of proposed development at SHRI-listed First Congregational Church, 

9. Initiative for City-wide Historic Resources Survey. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/landmarkspreservationcommission/ 

Public Works Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: Teleconference: Meeting ID: not published check after Monday  

AGENDA: Not published check after Monday 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Public_Works_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89718217408 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 897 1821 7408 Passcode: 33779 

AGENDA: 9. Berkeley Pier/Ferry Study and Ferry Service Business Plan Update 

https://weta.sanfranciscobayferry.com/next-board-meeting 

Friday, November 5, 2021 & Saturday, November 6, 2021 & Sunday, November 7, 2021 

No City meetings or events found 

________________________ 

Agenda and Rules Committee, November 1 at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86588827250 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 8882 7250 

DRAFT agenda for 11-16-2021 regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

CONSENT: 1. Resolution required findings to meet via video and teleconference, 2. Formal bid solicitations $15,120,000, 3. Accept California Equitable Recovery Initiative (CER) grant, 4. Contract $75,000 with ONTRACK Program Resources Inc for Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) for support services for African American community funded thru State of CA Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) thru 6-30-2022, 5. Salary Adjustment to Market Median for Dept Heads, 6. Commission Reorganization creating Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission, 7. Amend agreement between CA Dept of Transportation and City of Berkeley, new signal San Pablo & Parker and San Pablo & Bancroft, 8. Vision 2050 accept 1 year progress report, 9. Amend contract add $355,000 total $1,275,304 with Downtown Streets Team for add services around encampments and neighborhoods, 10. Purchase Order $285,000with Atlantic Machinery, Inc. for One Ravo Sweeper, 11. Fill vacancies elected representatives of the poor Human Welfare and Community Action Commission – George Lippman. 12. Salary Adjustment City Manager from $301,428 to $386,160, 13. Taplin – Budget referral $100,000 Curtis Street Traffic Diverters at Curtis & Channing and Curtis and Addison. ACTION: 14. Renewal Elmwood (Business Improvement District) BID for 2022, 15. Renewal Solano BID for 2022, 16. Fees: Vital Records, increase current fee by $2.00 for issuing each birth, death and fetal death certificate effective 1-1-2022, 17. Opt-in to Countywide Organics Reduction and Recycling Ordinance will bring city in compliance with SB 1383. 

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

_____________________ 

November 9, 2021, Regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83174462723 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 831 7446 2723 

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

CONSENT: 1. Ratify COVID Emergency, 2. Bid Solicitations, 3. Opt-in to CAA Health and Dependent Care Account extension for 2020 and 2021for extended reimbursement periods, 4. Grant Applications Prop 68 (parks), 5. Accept grant Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), 6. Board of Library Trustees Reappoint Amy Roth, 7. Arreguin – Berkeley Holiday Fund, 8. Arreguin – United Against Hate Week, 9. Taplin, Co-sponsors Bartlett, Robinson, Hahn - Affordable Housing Overlay Refer to CM and Planning Commission, 10. Taplin, co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral Berkeley Ceasefire $200,000 Gun Violence Prevention program (GVI) , 11. Taplin – Budget Referral $100,000 Annual Appropriations for Strawberry Creek Lodge, 12. Taplin – Budget Referral West Berkeley Residential Preferential Parking – expands restricted parking to west Berkeley – streets to be included not defined, 13. Taplin, co-sponsors Arreguin, Harrison, Hahn – Resolution Recognizing Housing as a Human Right, Referral to CM Begin Developing Social Housing, includes up to $300,000 for one or more consultants, application to meet housing needs of moderate, low, very low and extremely low income households, 14. Bartlett - Budget Referral $200,000 Homeless Outreach Coordinator for South Shattuck at Dwight Way to Adeline at 62^nd Street, 15. Letter in Opposition to EPA and Oxitec Ltd. Proposal to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in CA Counties, 16. Hahn - Budget Referral $50,000 Solano-Peralta Park restoration and improvements, , 17. Hahn, co-sponsors Wengraf – Bright Streets, to improve street conditions, 18. Wengraf – Resolution recommending Berkeley evacuation routes from High Fire Hazard Severity Zone be considered in PG&E Safety Initiative 10,000 Miles of Undergrounding Power Utility Lines, ACTION: 19. CM (Buddenhagen) - Public Hearing Resolution to initiate a $114,228 lien on property at 2800 Garber for Administrative Citations, 20. Objective Standards Recommendations for Density, Design and Shadows, 21. Parks and Waterfront Commission – Proposal to allocate revenues from Transient Occupancy Tax (hotel tax) in waterfront area to the marina fund, 22. Amend Berkeley Election Reform Act (BERA) relating to officeholder accounts, 23. Harrison co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral $500,000 to Support Pilot Program offering free AC transit on Sundays in Berkeley. 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date 2-1-2022 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date 2-1-2022 

Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with End of Appeal Period,  

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

1442 Fifth – Demolition of SFD, construction of 3 new SFD 10-28-2021 

924 Gilman, substantial expansion non-conforming recreation center adding music and arts Mon-Thur 6 pm – 10 pm 11-2-2021 

620 Harrison – install new illuminated signage 11-2-2021 

1205 Peralta – conversion of existing garage 

2709 San Pablo – New veterinary clinic thru conversion of existing space 11-2-2021 

1798 Scenic – Change use 2 buildings Pacific School of Religion to middle school for up to 140 students 11-2-2021 

2327 Shattuck, add liquor to existing restaurant 11-2-2021 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications_in_Appeal_Period.aspx 

LINK to Current Zoning Applications https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications.aspx 

___________________ 

WORKSESSIONS 

December 7 –1. WETA/Ferry Service at the Marina, 2. Presentation by Bay Restoration Authority, 3. Update Zero Waste Rates and Priorities, 

January 20 (Thursday) - Review and Update on City’s COVID-19 Response 

February 15 – Homeless and Mental Health Services 

March 15 – Housing Element Update 

April 19 – Fire Department Standards of Coverage Study 

Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations 

Cannabis Health Considerations 

Alameda County LAFCO Presentation 

Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program 

Civic Center – Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building 

Mid-Year Budget Report FY 2022 

Kelly Hammargren’s comments on what happened the preceding week can be found in the Berkeley Daily Planet www.berkeleydailyplanet.com under Activist’s Diary. 

If you have a meeting you would like included in the summary of meetings, please send a notice to kellyhammargren@gmail.com by noon on the Friday of the preceding week. 

This meeting list is also posted on the Sustainable Berkeley Coalition website. 

http://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet under activist’s calendar http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com 

If you or someone you know wishes to receive the weekly summary as soon as it is completed, email kellyhammargren@gmail.com to be added to the early email list. If you wish to stop receiving the Weekly Summary of City Meetings please forward the weekly summary you received to kellyhammargren@gmail.com. 

Noting: 

Monday the Council Public Safety meeting is at 10:30 am and includes discriminatory reports, ALPR and restoring red light cameras. Agenda Committee planning for 11-16-21 council meeting is at 2:30. Peace of Justice at 7 pm has Rights of Nature on the agenda (council killed the referral last Tuesday). Kesarwani and Saltzman at North Berkeley BART at 5:30 – 6:30 pm. 

Tuesday Council meets in closed session at 4 pm on the Leonard Powell lawsuit in superiorcourt. PAB Subcommittee on regulations meets at 6:30 pm. 

Wednesday the Council Budget Committee meets at 10 am. BOLT is at 6:30 pm. The Disability Commission meets at 6 pm with full agenda on accessible housing, Leonard Powell displacement, elevator ordinance. The Independent Redistricting meets at 6 pm – there is still time to submit your proposal for the new council district boundaries deadline November 15. The Planning Commission public hearing on the BART Station Housing Projects is at 7 pm – this looks to be the final meeting on zoning amendments and EIR. 

Thursday the Land Use Committee takes up streamlining ADU permitting and toxic remediation. LPC meets at 7 pm. Public Works has not published the links or agenda – deadline for posting is Monday. WETA meets at 1 pm with item 9 on the agenda is the Berkeley Pier/Fair study and Ferry Service Business Plan Update. 

The November 9 council agenda is posted at the bottom and available for comment. Note items moved to November 9 from last council meeting which ran until after midnight: 20. Objective standards, density, design, shadows (with an absence of residential neighborhood solar protections), 21. Marina hotel tax (will tax go to the Marina or general fund), 22. Officeholder accounts and 23. free Sunday AC transit are on the agenda under ACTION. 

Sunday, October 31, 2021 – Halloween - No City meetings or events found 

Monday, November 1, 2021 

City Council Public Safety Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89051605410 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 890 5160 5410 

AGENDA: 2. Presentation by Fire Dept evacuation plan, 3. Harrison, co-sponsor Hahn – Ordinance Prohibiting Discriminatory reports to law enforcement and refer to CM to report to council within 6 months anonymized data and information regarding discriminatory reports to law enforcement, 4. Taplin, co-sponsor Droste, Wengraf – Budget referral: automated license plate readers for community safety, 5. Taplin – Restoration of Red Light Camera Program. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Public_Safety.aspx 

Agenda and Rules Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86588827250 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 8882 7250 

AGENDA: Public Comment on non-agenda and items 2 – 7, 2. Review and approve draft agenda for 11-16-2021 (full agenda follows list of meetings by day of the week or use link). 3. Berkeley considers, 4. Adjournments in memory, 5. Council worksessions, 6. Referrals for scheduling, 7. Land use calendar, REFERRED ITEMS for REVIEW: 8. Impact of COVID on meetings, 9. Return to in-person meetings, 10. Discussion of changes to fules of procedure for budget referral, UNSCHEDULED ITEMS: 11. Strengthening and supporting city commissions. 

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

Peace and Justice Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88352159324 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 88352159324 

AGENDA: 7. Rights of Nature, 8. Resolution to Council on Surveillance Ordinance, 9. Resolution on Immigration Reform, 10. Potential letter to BUSD Board and/or Council on commission reorganization elimination of BUSD appointments. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=13054 

Councilmember Kesarwani with BART Board Director Rebecca Saltzman at 5:30 – 6:30 pm 

In-person at North Berkeley BART Station to meet with public on BART Station Housing Plan 

Tuesday, November 2, 2021 

City Council Closed Session at 4 pm, 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89269037403 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 892 6903 7403 

AGENDA: 1. Conference with legal counsel – existing or anticipated litigation, The People of the State of California v. Leonard Felton Powell CA Superior Court RG 15762567. 

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

Police Accountability Board Regulations Subcommittee at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82281228507# 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 822 8122 8507 

AGENDA: 4. Continue drafting regulations. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=162752 

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 

City Council Budget & Finance Committee at 10 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83144440922 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 831 4444 0922 

AGENDA: 2. Harrison, co-sponsor Bartlett - Budget Referral and Resolution establishing a pilot of building electrification installation incentives and just transition program with pre-qualified contractors meeting minimum labor standards to assist new property owners, renters and existing property owners with transition to zero-carbon buildings, 3. Cash v. Accrual Basis Accounting, 4. Discussion and development of criteria and timing for AAO Process. UNSCHEDULED: 5. Review of Council Fiscal Policies. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Budget___Finance.aspx 

Board of Library Trustees at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86042306505 (showing as expired) 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 860 4230 6505 

AGENDA: B. FY 2022 Budget Amendment (AAO), C. Budget Priorities for FY 2023 & 2024, D. Initiation of RFP to hire consultant to support strategic planning. 

https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/about/board-library-trustees 

Commission on Disability at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82676648116?pwd=S05WZHBQVkF0Z0ZWTlJ1L3EzSVEwdz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 826 7664 8116 Passcode: 786788 

AGENDA: Action Items: 1. Elevator Ordinance, 2. Vacancies, Discussion Items: 1. Presentation Infrastructure Bond, 2. Escooters and Ebikes, 3. Southside complete streets project, 4. Leonard Powell Displacement Issue, 5. Disaster Preparedness, 6. Accessible Housing Update, 7. Housing Element Update, 8. Elevator Ordinance Update, 9. Ethnicity & Disability Statistics of People who have contracted COVID in Berkeley. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_Disability_Homepage.aspx 

Independent Redistricting Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86592119245 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 9211 9245 

AGENDA: 2. Review of Community Interest Form Submissions, 3. Review of Map Submissions, 4. Appointment At-Large Alternate Commissioner, Subcommittee Reports: 5. Map and Community Interest, 6. Community Outreach. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/irc/ 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/redistricting/ 

Planning Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85938976960 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 859 3897 6960 

AGENDA: 4. Future Agenda Items, 9. Public Hearing: Ashby and North Berkeley BART conduct public hearing and (1) adopt Zoning Ordinance and Map amendments, (2) Adopt City and BART Joint Vision and Priorities Document and (3) Certify Draft EIR and make recommendation to council,  

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Planning_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Thursday, November 4, 2021 

City Council Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81911497834 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 819 1149 7834 

AGENDA: 2. Kesarwani, co-sponsors Wengraf, Droste, Bartlett – Refer to CM to Streamline ADU permit review and approval process UNSCHEDULED: 3. Harrison - Amend Short term rental ordinance, 4. Taplin - Refer to CM Streamline Toxic Remediation in Manufacturing Districts. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Land_Use,_Housing___Economic_Development.aspx 

Housing Advisory Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83921571130 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 839 2157 1130 

AGENDA: 5. Recommend a substantial amendment to the PY 2021 Annual Action Plan to accept the HOME-ARP funds for a Project HomeKey, 6. Housing Trust Fund Subcommittee’s Funding Recommendations for 2021 Housing Trust Fund Request Proposals, 7. Adopt funding recommendations for 2021 Educator Housing Notice of Funding Availability. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Housing_Advisory_Commission/ 

Landmarks Preservation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84250993809 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 842 5099 3809 

AGENDA: 5. 2601 Warring - CA school for Deaf & Blind/Clark Kerr Campus pending development, seismic improvements on UC owned City landmark 

6. 2212 Fifth – Landmark or Structure of Merit Designation, residential property 

7. Draft EIR for North Berkeley & Ashby BART station re-zoning 

8. 2345 Channing – provide advisory comments on design of proposed development at SHRI-listed First Congregational Church, 

9. Initiative for City-wide Historic Resources Survey. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/landmarkspreservationcommission/ 

Public Works Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: Teleconference: Meeting ID: not published check after Monday  

AGENDA: Not published check after Monday 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Public_Works_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89718217408 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 897 1821 7408 Passcode: 33779 

AGENDA: 9. Berkeley Pier/Ferry Study and Ferry Service Business Plan Update 

https://weta.sanfranciscobayferry.com/next-board-meeting 

Friday, November 5, 2021 & Saturday, November 6, 2021 & Sunday, November 7, 2021 

No City meetings or events found 

________________________ 

Agenda and Rules Committee, November 1 at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86588827250 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 8882 7250 

DRAFT agenda for 11-16-2021 regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

CONSENT: 1. Resolution required findings to meet via video and teleconference, 2. Formal bid solicitations $15,120,000, 3. Accept California Equitable Recovery Initiative (CER) grant, 4. Contract $75,000 with ONTRACK Program Resources Inc for Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) for support services for African American community funded thru State of CA Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) thru 6-30-2022, 5. Salary Adjustment to Market Median for Dept Heads, 6. Commission Reorganization creating Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission, 7. Amend agreement between CA Dept of Transportation and City of Berkeley, new signal San Pablo & Parker and San Pablo & Bancroft, 8. Vision 2050 accept 1 year progress report, 9. Amend contract add $355,000 total $1,275,304 with Downtown Streets Team for add services around encampments and neighborhoods, 10. Purchase Order $285,000with Atlantic Machinery, Inc. for One Ravo Sweeper, 11. Fill vacancies elected representatives of the poor Human Welfare and Community Action Commission – George Lippman. 12. Salary Adjustment City Manager from $301,428 to $386,160, 13. Taplin – Budget referral $100,000 Curtis Street Traffic Diverters at Curtis & Channing and Curtis and Addison. ACTION: 14. Renewal Elmwood (Business Improvement District) BID for 2022, 15. Renewal Solano BID for 2022, 16. Fees: Vital Records, increase current fee by $2.00 for issuing each birth, death and fetal death certificate effective 1-1-2022, 17. Opt-in to Countywide Organics Reduction and Recycling Ordinance will bring city in compliance with SB 1383. 

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

_____________________ 

November 9, 2021, Regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83174462723 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 831 7446 2723 

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

CONSENT: 1. Ratify COVID Emergency, 2. Bid Solicitations, 3. Opt-in to CAA Health and Dependent Care Account extension for 2020 and 2021for extended reimbursement periods, 4. Grant Applications Prop 68 (parks), 5. Accept grant Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), 6. Board of Library Trustees Reappoint Amy Roth, 7. Arreguin – Berkeley Holiday Fund, 8. Arreguin – United Against Hate Week, 9. Taplin, Co-sponsors Bartlett, Robinson, Hahn - Affordable Housing Overlay Refer to CM and Planning Commission, 10. Taplin, co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral Berkeley Ceasefire $200,000 Gun Violence Prevention program (GVI) , 11. Taplin – Budget Referral $100,000 Annual Appropriations for Strawberry Creek Lodge, 12. Taplin – Budget Referral West Berkeley Residential Preferential Parking – expands restricted parking to west Berkeley – streets to be included not defined, 13. Taplin, co-sponsors Arreguin, Harrison, Hahn – Resolution Recognizing Housing as a Human Right, Referral to CM Begin Developing Social Housing, includes up to $300,000 for one or more consultants, application to meet housing needs of moderate, low, very low and extremely low income households, 14. Bartlett - Budget Referral $200,000 Homeless Outreach Coordinator for South Shattuck at Dwight Way to Adeline at 62^nd Street, 15. Letter in Opposition to EPA and Oxitec Ltd. Proposal to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in CA Counties, 16. Hahn - Budget Referral $50,000 Solano-Peralta Park restoration and improvements, , 17. Hahn, co-sponsors Wengraf – Bright Streets, to improve street conditions, 18. Wengraf – Resolution recommending Berkeley evacuation routes from High Fire Hazard Severity Zone be considered in PG&E Safety Initiative 10,000 Miles of Undergrounding Power Utility Lines, ACTION: 19. CM (Buddenhagen) - Public Hearing Resolution to initiate a $114,228 lien on property at 2800 Garber for Administrative Citations, 20. Objective Standards Recommendations for Density, Design and Shadows, 21. Parks and Waterfront Commission – Proposal to allocate revenues from Transient Occupancy Tax (hotel tax) in waterfront area to the marina fund, 22. Amend Berkeley Election Reform Act (BERA) relating to officeholder accounts, 23. Harrison co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral $500,000 to Support Pilot Program offering free AC transit on Sundays in Berkeley. 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date 2-1-2022 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date 2-1-2022 

Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with End of Appeal Period,  

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

1442 Fifth – Demolition of SFD, construction of 3 new SFD 10-28-2021 

924 Gilman, substantial expansion non-conforming recreation center adding music and arts Mon-Thur 6 pm – 10 pm 11-2-2021 

620 Harrison – install new illuminated signage 11-2-2021 

1205 Peralta – conversion of existing garage 

2709 San Pablo – New veterinary clinic thru conversion of existing space 11-2-2021 

1798 Scenic – Change use 2 buildings Pacific School of Religion to middle school for up to 140 students 11-2-2021 

2327 Shattuck, add liquor to existing restaurant 11-2-2021 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications_in_Appeal_Period.aspx 

LINK to Current Zoning Applications https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications.aspx 

___________________ 

WORKSESSIONS 

December 7 –1. WETA/Ferry Service at the Marina, 2. Presentation by Bay Restoration Authority, 3. Update Zero Waste Rates and Priorities, 

January 20 (Thursday) - Review and Update on City’s COVID-19 Response 

February 15 – Homeless and Mental Health Services 

March 15 – Housing Element Update 

April 19 – Fire Department Standards of Coverage Study 

Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations 

Cannabis Health Considerations 

Alameda County LAFCO Presentation 

Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program 

Civic Center – Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building 

Mid-Year Budget Report FY 2022 

Kelly Hammargren’s comments on what happened the preceding week can be found in the Berkeley Daily Planet www.berkeleydailyplanet.com under Activist’s Diary. 

If you have a meeting you would like included in the summary of meetings, please send a notice to kellyhammargren@gmail.com by noon on the Friday of the preceding week. 

This meeting list is also posted on the Sustainable Berkeley Coalition website. 

http://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet under activist’s calendar http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com 

If you or someone you know wishes to receive the weekly summary as soon as it is completed, email kellyhammargren@gmail.com to be added to the early email list. If you wish to stop receiving the Weekly Summary of City Meetings please forward the weekly summary you received to kellyhammargren@gmail.com. 

Noting: 

Monday the Council Public Safety meeting is at 10:30 am and includes discriminatory reports, ALPR and restoring red light cameras. Agenda Committee planning for 11-16-21 council meeting is at 2:30. Peace of Justice at 7 pm has Rights of Nature on the agenda (council killed the referral last Tuesday). Kesarwani and Saltzman at North Berkeley BART at 5:30 – 6:30 pm. 

Tuesday Council meets in closed session at 4 pm on the Leonard Powell lawsuit in superiorcourt. PAB Subcommittee on regulations meets at 6:30 pm. 

Wednesday the Council Budget Committee meets at 10 am. BOLT is at 6:30 pm. The Disability Commission meets at 6 pm with full agenda on accessible housing, Leonard Powell displacement, elevator ordinance. The Independent Redistricting meets at 6 pm – there is still time to submit your proposal for the new council district boundaries deadline November 15. The Planning Commission public hearing on the BART Station Housing Projects is at 7 pm – this looks to be the final meeting on zoning amendments and EIR. 

Thursday the Land Use Committee takes up streamlining ADU permitting and toxic remediation. LPC meets at 7 pm. Public Works has not published the links or agenda – deadline for posting is Monday. WETA meets at 1 pm with item 9 on the agenda is the Berkeley Pier/Fair study and Ferry Service Business Plan Update. 

The November 9 council agenda is posted at the bottom and available for comment. Note items moved to November 9 from last council meeting which ran until after midnight: 20. Objective standards, density, design, shadows (with an absence of residential neighborhood solar protections), 21. Marina hotel tax (will tax go to the Marina or general fund), 22. Officeholder accounts and 23. free Sunday AC transit are on the agenda under ACTION. 

Sunday, October 31, 2021 – Halloween - No City meetings or events found 

Monday, November 1, 2021 

City Council Public Safety Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89051605410 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 890 5160 5410 

AGENDA: 2. Presentation by Fire Dept evacuation plan, 3. Harrison, co-sponsor Hahn – Ordinance Prohibiting Discriminatory reports to law enforcement and refer to CM to report to council within 6 months anonymized data and information regarding discriminatory reports to law enforcement, 4. Taplin, co-sponsor Droste, Wengraf – Budget referral: automated license plate readers for community safety, 5. Taplin – Restoration of Red Light Camera Program. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Public_Safety.aspx 

Agenda and Rules Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86588827250 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 8882 7250 

AGENDA: Public Comment on non-agenda and items 2 – 7, 2. Review and approve draft agenda for 11-16-2021 (full agenda follows list of meetings by day of the week or use link). 3. Berkeley considers, 4. Adjournments in memory, 5. Council worksessions, 6. Referrals for scheduling, 7. Land use calendar, REFERRED ITEMS for REVIEW: 8. Impact of COVID on meetings, 9. Return to in-person meetings, 10. Discussion of changes to fules of procedure for budget referral, UNSCHEDULED ITEMS: 11. Strengthening and supporting city commissions. 

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

Peace and Justice Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88352159324 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 88352159324 

AGENDA: 7. Rights of Nature, 8. Resolution to Council on Surveillance Ordinance, 9. Resolution on Immigration Reform, 10. Potential letter to BUSD Board and/or Council on commission reorganization elimination of BUSD appointments. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=13054 

Councilmember Kesarwani with BART Board Director Rebecca Saltzman at 5:30 – 6:30 pm 

In-person at North Berkeley BART Station to meet with public on BART Station Housing Plan 

Tuesday, November 2, 2021 

City Council Closed Session at 4 pm, 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89269037403 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 892 6903 7403 

AGENDA: 1. Conference with legal counsel – existing or anticipated litigation, The People of the State of California v. Leonard Felton Powell CA Superior Court RG 15762567. 

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

Police Accountability Board Regulations Subcommittee at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82281228507# 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 822 8122 8507 

AGENDA: 4. Continue drafting regulations. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=162752 

Wednesday, November 3, 2021 

City Council Budget & Finance Committee at 10 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83144440922 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 831 4444 0922 

AGENDA: 2. Harrison, co-sponsor Bartlett - Budget Referral and Resolution establishing a pilot of building electrification installation incentives and just transition program with pre-qualified contractors meeting minimum labor standards to assist new property owners, renters and existing property owners with transition to zero-carbon buildings, 3. Cash v. Accrual Basis Accounting, 4. Discussion and development of criteria and timing for AAO Process. UNSCHEDULED: 5. Review of Council Fiscal Policies. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Budget___Finance.aspx 

Board of Library Trustees at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86042306505 (showing as expired) 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 860 4230 6505 

AGENDA: B. FY 2022 Budget Amendment (AAO), C. Budget Priorities for FY 2023 & 2024, D. Initiation of RFP to hire consultant to support strategic planning. 

https://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/about/board-library-trustees 

Commission on Disability at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82676648116?pwd=S05WZHBQVkF0Z0ZWTlJ1L3EzSVEwdz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 826 7664 8116 Passcode: 786788 

AGENDA: Action Items: 1. Elevator Ordinance, 2. Vacancies, Discussion Items: 1. Presentation Infrastructure Bond, 2. Escooters and Ebikes, 3. Southside complete streets project, 4. Leonard Powell Displacement Issue, 5. Disaster Preparedness, 6. Accessible Housing Update, 7. Housing Element Update, 8. Elevator Ordinance Update, 9. Ethnicity & Disability Statistics of People who have contracted COVID in Berkeley. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Commission_on_Disability_Homepage.aspx 

Independent Redistricting Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86592119245 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 9211 9245 

AGENDA: 2. Review of Community Interest Form Submissions, 3. Review of Map Submissions, 4. Appointment At-Large Alternate Commissioner, Subcommittee Reports: 5. Map and Community Interest, 6. Community Outreach. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/irc/ 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/redistricting/ 

Planning Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85938976960 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 859 3897 6960 

AGENDA: 4. Future Agenda Items, 9. Public Hearing: Ashby and North Berkeley BART conduct public hearing and (1) adopt Zoning Ordinance and Map amendments, (2) Adopt City and BART Joint Vision and Priorities Document and (3) Certify Draft EIR and make recommendation to council,  

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Planning_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Thursday, November 4, 2021 

City Council Land Use, Housing & Economic Development Committee at 10:30 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81911497834 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 819 1149 7834 

AGENDA: 2. Kesarwani, co-sponsors Wengraf, Droste, Bartlett – Refer to CM to Streamline ADU permit review and approval process UNSCHEDULED: 3. Harrison - Amend Short term rental ordinance, 4. Taplin - Refer to CM Streamline Toxic Remediation in Manufacturing Districts. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Land_Use,_Housing___Economic_Development.aspx 

Housing Advisory Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83921571130 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 839 2157 1130 

AGENDA: 5. Recommend a substantial amendment to the PY 2021 Annual Action Plan to accept the HOME-ARP funds for a Project HomeKey, 6. Housing Trust Fund Subcommittee’s Funding Recommendations for 2021 Housing Trust Fund Request Proposals, 7. Adopt funding recommendations for 2021 Educator Housing Notice of Funding Availability. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Housing_Advisory_Commission/ 

Landmarks Preservation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84250993809 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 842 5099 3809 

AGENDA: 5. 2601 Warring - CA school for Deaf & Blind/Clark Kerr Campus pending development, seismic improvements on UC owned City landmark 

6. 2212 Fifth – Landmark or Structure of Merit Designation, residential property 

7. Draft EIR for North Berkeley & Ashby BART station re-zoning 

8. 2345 Channing – provide advisory comments on design of proposed development at SHRI-listed First Congregational Church, 

9. Initiative for City-wide Historic Resources Survey. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/landmarkspreservationcommission/ 

Public Works Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: Teleconference: Meeting ID: not published check after Monday  

AGENDA: Not published check after Monday 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Public_Works_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

WETA (Water Emergency Transportation Authority 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89718217408 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 897 1821 7408 Passcode: 33779 

AGENDA: 9. Berkeley Pier/Ferry Study and Ferry Service Business Plan Update 

https://weta.sanfranciscobayferry.com/next-board-meeting 

Friday, November 5, 2021 & Saturday, November 6, 2021 & Sunday, November 7, 2021 

No City meetings or events found 

________________________ 

Agenda and Rules Committee, November 1 at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86588827250 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 865 8882 7250 

DRAFT agenda for 11-16-2021 regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

CONSENT: 1. Resolution required findings to meet via video and teleconference, 2. Formal bid solicitations $15,120,000, 3. Accept California Equitable Recovery Initiative (CER) grant, 4. Contract $75,000 with ONTRACK Program Resources Inc for Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI) for support services for African American community funded thru State of CA Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) thru 6-30-2022, 5. Salary Adjustment to Market Median for Dept Heads, 6. Commission Reorganization creating Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission, 7. Amend agreement between CA Dept of Transportation and City of Berkeley, new signal San Pablo & Parker and San Pablo & Bancroft, 8. Vision 2050 accept 1 year progress report, 9. Amend contract add $355,000 total $1,275,304 with Downtown Streets Team for add services around encampments and neighborhoods, 10. Purchase Order $285,000with Atlantic Machinery, Inc. for One Ravo Sweeper, 11. Fill vacancies elected representatives of the poor Human Welfare and Community Action Commission – George Lippman. 12. Salary Adjustment City Manager from $301,428 to $386,160, 13. Taplin – Budget referral $100,000 Curtis Street Traffic Diverters at Curtis & Channing and Curtis and Addison. ACTION: 14. Renewal Elmwood (Business Improvement District) BID for 2022, 15. Renewal Solano BID for 2022, 16. Fees: Vital Records, increase current fee by $2.00 for issuing each birth, death and fetal death certificate effective 1-1-2022, 17. Opt-in to Countywide Organics Reduction and Recycling Ordinance will bring city in compliance with SB 1383. 

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

_____________________ 

November 9, 2021, Regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83174462723 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 831 7446 2723 

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

CONSENT: 1. Ratify COVID Emergency, 2. Bid Solicitations, 3. Opt-in to CAA Health and Dependent Care Account extension for 2020 and 2021for extended reimbursement periods, 4. Grant Applications Prop 68 (parks), 5. Accept grant Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), 6. Board of Library Trustees Reappoint Amy Roth, 7. Arreguin – Berkeley Holiday Fund, 8. Arreguin – United Against Hate Week, 9. Taplin, Co-sponsors Bartlett, Robinson, Hahn - Affordable Housing Overlay Refer to CM and Planning Commission, 10. Taplin, co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral Berkeley Ceasefire $200,000 Gun Violence Prevention program (GVI) , 11. Taplin – Budget Referral $100,000 Annual Appropriations for Strawberry Creek Lodge, 12. Taplin – Budget Referral West Berkeley Residential Preferential Parking – expands restricted parking to west Berkeley – streets to be included not defined, 13. Taplin, co-sponsors Arreguin, Harrison, Hahn – Resolution Recognizing Housing as a Human Right, Referral to CM Begin Developing Social Housing, includes up to $300,000 for one or more consultants, application to meet housing needs of moderate, low, very low and extremely low income households, 14. Bartlett - Budget Referral $200,000 Homeless Outreach Coordinator for South Shattuck at Dwight Way to Adeline at 62^nd Street, 15. Letter in Opposition to EPA and Oxitec Ltd. Proposal to release genetically engineered mosquitoes in CA Counties, 16. Hahn - Budget Referral $50,000 Solano-Peralta Park restoration and improvements, , 17. Hahn, co-sponsors Wengraf – Bright Streets, to improve street conditions, 18. Wengraf – Resolution recommending Berkeley evacuation routes from High Fire Hazard Severity Zone be considered in PG&E Safety Initiative 10,000 Miles of Undergrounding Power Utility Lines, ACTION: 19. CM (Buddenhagen) - Public Hearing Resolution to initiate a $114,228 lien on property at 2800 Garber for Administrative Citations, 20. Objective Standards Recommendations for Density, Design and Shadows, 21. Parks and Waterfront Commission – Proposal to allocate revenues from Transient Occupancy Tax (hotel tax) in waterfront area to the marina fund, 22. Amend Berkeley Election Reform Act (BERA) relating to officeholder accounts, 23. Harrison co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral $500,000 to Support Pilot Program offering free AC transit on Sundays in Berkeley. 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date 2-1-2022 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date 2-1-2022 

Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with End of Appeal Period,  

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

1442 Fifth – Demolition of SFD, construction of 3 new SFD 10-28-2021 

924 Gilman, substantial expansion non-conforming recreation center adding music and arts Mon-Thur 6 pm – 10 pm 11-2-2021 

620 Harrison – install new illuminated signage 11-2-2021 

1205 Peralta – conversion of existing garage 

2709 San Pablo – New veterinary clinic thru conversion of existing space 11-2-2021 

1798 Scenic – Change use 2 buildings Pacific School of Religion to middle school for up to 140 students 11-2-2021 

2327 Shattuck, add liquor to existing res

One of the side benefits of the changes forced by the pandemic is that an international conference planned to take place in London could be watched live from home. I finished the week with attending the international virtual conference Half-Earth Day.

The Half-Earth Project® started with Edward O. Wilson and his premise that to save the bulk of biodiversity including ourselves, we need to conserve half the land and sea. https://www.half-earthproject.org/

Conserving half the earth for biodiversity is a laudable goal, one that sadly I don’t see going very far. For heaven’s sake we can’t even get developers to come to ZAB (Zoning Adjustment Board) and DRC (Design Review Committee) with a landscape plan that is predominantly locally native plants, or to install bird safe glass, or to stop planning patios with methane-burning firepits.

Calling methane “natural gas” doesn’t make it any less toxic to the environment or to your kitchen for that matter. And, all those projects in the works before the implementation of the natural gas ban in new construction passed by city council on July 23, 2019, can still do what they wish. ZAB (Zoning Adjustment Board) and DRC (Design Review Committee) can only request.

As for bird safe glass, nothing has changed since I last wrote. The bird safe glass ordinance passed by council on November 12, 2019, was referred to the Planning Commission where the ordinance languishes, second from the bottom of a long to-do list with no priority, awaiting Planning Commission approval. That is, before the ordinance takes a tour through the city manager’s office, and then it can be implemented.

I confess to being a bit cranky at DRC Thursday evening, when I started my first public comment with: Why do we, month after month, have to speak to the same issues, choosing native plants and bird safe glass? The two projects before DRC for final review Thursday evening have been in the works since 2016 and 2018. Speakers representing both projects, 2902 Adeline and 1951 Shattuck, insisted the fire pits were a desired amenity to keep. Cody Fornari, the developer and CEO of Realtex for 2902 Adeline, did not express even a whiff of interest in bird safe glass. 

The second project for final review was a twelve-story glass-dominant residential tower at 1951 Shattuck. It’s not clear when the property was sold to Grosvenor Americas, but the traditional style from 2014 went away with the new owner’s project design. 

A representative from the Audubon Society Board spoke to advocates for both projects on improving safety for birds. With the bird safe glass ordinance buried deep in the dark, the DRC could only request, not enforce, bird safe glass. The developer for 1951 Shattuck did say they were familiar with the San Francisco bird safe glass ordinance, and would be using glass with a film at the top of the building, and would be using a method to improve the safety of the glass railings on the balconies. None of the rest of the building would contain bird safe glass. 

A predominantly glass building with glass corners near trees and glass balcony enclosures is a real hazard for birds, as is reflective glass in low and mid-rise buildings. Somehow, I missed the full story: that Lux, one of the two peregrine falcons born at the UC Campanile in 2017, died slamming into glass in a balcony enclosure one week after it learned how to fly. 

At the end of the DRC meeting Charles Kahn asked DRC Secretary Anne Burns if there isn’t a list given to developers of the things that will come up in DRC meetings, like native plants and bird safe glass. Since there is no list and the topic of a list was not on the agenda, Kahn asked for consideration of making such a list to be added to the next meeting agenda. 

Berkeley could have a leading bird safe glass ordinance far better than the 2011 San Francisco ordinance, but like so much that seems to happen in this city, Mayor Arreguin finds a way to look progressive while actual action comes up empty. There are other cities and mayors to watch and candidates with real commitment for the future. Mayor Peduto of Pittsburgh, PA, led that city through passing Dark Sky legislation in August. 

Forty-two people attended the Tuesday evening City Council special meeting on the Berkeley Police Department (BPD) Crime Report. Since the meeting is virtual and the public can’t see who is logged in to Zoom, we can’t know if the reason for the small number of speakers is because most of the attendees were members of BPD or just members of the public who were there to listen and not speak. The presentation and video are all available online. https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/City_Council__Agenda_Index.aspx. 

When Blacks are only 8% of the Berkeley population and 43.07% were subjected to use of force, while Whites are 50% of Berkeley population but logged as receiving only 26.22% of the incidences of use of force, it doesn’t look like much has changed in regard to biased policing. 

Arreguin took the lead in responding to the BPD presentation and public comment by stating at 1:27:12 in the meeting video that he wanted to address his concern about decreased police staffing, saying “that we’re seeing a huge decrease in staffing in the department…I believe that we can have adequate staffing in our police department…and we can invest in alternative responders that are being explored through the re-imagining process…I don’t think those are mutually exclusive…” 

Having attended many of the city Budget & Finance Policy Committee meetings, I can predict where the allocation to alternatives will end up after the BPD budget has been allocated. On something as important as re-imagining public safety, I would love to be surprised and proven wrong. 

The number of sworn officers is now at 152 which is 1 officer per 818 residents or 12.22 per 10,000 residents (2020 census). I was curious after the mayor’s statements just how Berkeley compares in the number of officers relative to population. What I found is that the number of officers per population across the nation is anywhere from 4.2 per 10,000 in Lincoln, CA, to 68.7 /10,000 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, though most listings in California vary from 9 to 14 per 10,000. San Francisco is a California outlier with 26.4. You could spend all night scrolling through this list https://www.governing.com/archive/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html Berkeley with a smaller population and more officers was at 14 when the chart was compiled. 

The Berkeley City Council approved a $270,000 contract with NICJR to oversee the community process for a re-imagining of public safety in Berkeley. I haven’t heard much of anything that is a “re-imagining.” There have been a lot of presentations from BPD seeming to defend what they already do, with not a speck that I can think of from attending task force meetings that points to alternative approaches (other than what comes out of the frustrated mouths of task force members). The NICJR final report will be completed any day now and turned over to the City Manager. It is unclear when the Reimagining Public Safety Task Force will see it, but we will know more after their next meeting at 5 pm on Wednesday. 

In the meantime, Criminal Injustice is an excel podcast on criminal justice reform and the law. I highly recommend the October 19, 2021 podcast. You might even want to take a tour through the archives. http://www.criminalinjusticepodcast.com/blog/2021/10/18/146-public-defense-and-criminal-justice-reform 

California seems to be in the throes of recall fever. Chesa Boudin, San Francisco District Attorney, is now on the block. Since I moved from San Francisco to Berkeley thirty-one years ago I haven’t been tracking San Francisco politics, but it was interesting to read in an SFGate analysis that San Francisco with 26.4 sworn officers per 10,000 (2016 count) solves only 10% of the crimes. In all the tallies and charts.g What percent of crimes are solved by BPD in Berkeley wasn’t part of the BPD Crime Report on Tuesday night. 

The Wednesday FITES (Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment and Sustainability) Committee meeting with the Native and Drought Resistant Plants and Landscaping Ordinance Referral on the agenda was canceled. 

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton is a book that should be on everyone’s reading list. It was on mine this week. Any sort of summary can’t do justice to the depth of the story of an innocent man living his adult life on death row. Our criminal justice system should give us a lot to think about. I read Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row a collection of essays by Tessie Castillo with contributions by: Michael J. Braxton, Lyle May, Terry Robinson, George Wilkerson, earlier this year. That book is a harder read. 

Maybe 2022 is the year I finally visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.

Worth Noting: A full week ahead. Commissioners are still working through aa will happen to priorities with the merging of commissions.

Monday – The Civic Arts Policy Subcommittee meets at 10 am, The Agenda and Rules committee is at 2:30 pm and reviews the council agenda for November 9. Zero Waste and Children, Youth and Recreation both meet at 7 pm.

Tuesday – Council closed session at 4 pm with the Council regular meeting at 6 pm.

Wednesday – The 4 x 4 Committee meets at 3 pm. The Energy Commission and Reimagining Task Force meet at 5 pm. The Civic Arts Commission and the Housing Element Workshop on adding 8,934 residential units meet at 6 pm. The Pier-Ferry Workshop #3 is at 6:30 pm. The Disaster and Fire Safety Commission and Police Accountability Board meet at 7 pm.

Thursday – The Hopkins Corridor Traffic Study is at 6 pm. The Willard Park Clubhouse Community meeting is at 6:30 pm. The Mental Health Commission and Zoning Adjustment Board meet at 7 pm.

Saturday relax – Roller Skate BOOgie 11 am – 4 pm.

October 28 – November 14, 2021 Citywide Public Survey on housing www.surveymonkey.com/r/berkeleyhousing 

Sunday, October 24, 2021– Heavy Rain and Wind Predicted - No City meetings or events 

Monday, October 25, 2021 

Agenda and Rules Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84225555460 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 842 2555 5460 

AGENDA: Public Comment non-agenda and agenda items 1 – 7, 2. Review and approve draft agenda for 11-9-2021 (use link or go to full agenda posted after list meetings by day), 3. Berkeley Considers, 4. Adjournments in Memory, 5. Council Worksessions, 6. Council referrals, 7. Land Use Calendar, 8. Impact of Covid, 9. In-person meetings, Unscheduled: 10. Strengthening and Supporting City Commissions. 

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

Children, Youth and Recreation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/96169129849 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 961 6912 9849 

AGENDA: 8. Consolidation Updates, 9. Program Updates. 

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/Children_Youth_and_Recreation_Commission/ 

Civic Arts Commission Policy Subcommittee at 10 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85002379808 (zoom is showing this link as expired) 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 850 0237 9808 

AGENDA: 4. Grant Guidelines funded by American Rescue Plan. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CivicArtsCommissionHomepage/ 

Zero Waste Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/s/82587046286 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 825 8704 6286 

AGENDA: Action Items 1. Commission restructuring to provide feedback on Zero Waste Definitions, 2. Council Referral on plastic bags - carryout and pre-checkout bags. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Zero_Waste_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Tuesday, October 26, 2021 

City Council CLOSED Session at 4 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83600896808 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 836 0089 6808 

AGENDA: 1. Conference with labor negotiators, employee organizations IBEW, Local 1245, SEIU 1021 Community Services and Part-Time Recreation Activity Leaders, Berkeley Fire Fighters Association Local 1227, BPA, SEIU, Local 1021 Maintenance and Clerical Chapters, Berkeley Fire Fighters Association, Local 1227 I.A.F.F./Berkeley Chief Fire Officers Association Public Employees Union Local 1, Unrepresented Employees. 

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

City Council Regular Meeting at 6 pm, 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87152148000 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 871 5214 8000 

AGENDA: use link or go to full agenda posted after list of meetings by day and draft agenda for 11-9-2021. 

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

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 

4x4 Joint Task Force Committee on Housing: Rent Board/City Council at 3 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86090421133?pwd=V1dES1lGOGRVandSc2VVcDNvaG8vZz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 860 9042 1133 Passcode: 776064 

AGENDA: 5. Updates on Previously Discussed Items a. Amendments to Demolition Ordinance, b. Amendments to Relocation Ordinance. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/4x4_Committee_Homepage.aspx 

Energy Commission at 5 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86530755421 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 865 3075 5421 

AGENDA: 8. Discussion and consideration of Berkeley Existing Building Electrification Strategy, 9. Commission Consolidation, 11. Council referral on Reusable Bags. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Energy_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Berkeley Municipal Pier & WETA Ferry Facility Planning Study Community Workshop #3 at 6:30 – 8:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/82683370448 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 826 8337 0448
Mail your comments, questions, and mailing list requests to: BMASP@cityofberkeley.info 

AGENDA: Preferred Waterside and landside conceptual designs for Pier-Ferry Planning Study. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/uploadedImages/Parks_Rec_Waterfront/Level_3__-General/10-27-21-PierFerry-mtg3-flyer.jpg 

Berkeley Municipal Pier Website: https://www.cityofberkeley.info/parks/pier/ 

Civic Arts Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86147520326 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 861 4752 0326 

AGENDA: 6. Presentations a) Measure T1 Phase 2 Project Sites, b) Fair Work Week Ordinance, 7. Action items: a) Letter to Council Agreement with Bayer, b) 2352 Shattuck (Logan Park), c) Approval of Berkeley Art Works Projects Grants, e) American Rescue Plan funds for the Arts Grant Guidelines. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CivicArtsCommissionHomepage/ 

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89456151606 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 894 5615 1606 

AGENDA: 1. Fire Dept Staff Report a. Measure FF, b. Measure GG, Action Items: 3. Recommendation to identify High Risk Areas that are exempt from State Imposed Housing Increases Due to Public Safety Considerations, 4. Revisiting Commission’s recommendation to Use Measure FF Funds as intended by the Voters, Discussion Items: 5. November 2022 Infrastructure Bond Ballot Measure, 6. Criteria for Measure FF Funds for vegetation clearance on private land, 7. Commission Home Page Resource List. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Disaster_and_Fire_Safety_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Housing Element Workshop at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81914352145 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 819 1435 2145 

AGENDA: Public Workshop #1 City of Berkeley’s Housing Plan for 2023 – 2031 – where to put 8934 residential units. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/housingelement/ 

Reimagining Public Safety Task Force at 5 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81983354907 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 819 8335 4907 

AGENDA: Discussion/Action: Task Force Recommendation and Process Review of Table of Contents of final NICJR report, Create process which reviews the report, makes comments and writes responses and includes recommendations, Create timeline and benchmarks to ensure Taskforce’s obligations and purpose, Subcommittee Reports: Policing, Budget & Alternatives to Policing, Community Engagement, Improve and Reinvest, Alternative Solutions to Gender Based Violence. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/RIPST.aspx 

Police Accountability Board at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82237902987 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 822 3790 2987 

AGENDA: 9. Old Business a. Obligation to meet and confer over provisions of Interim Regulations for handling complaints, b. Status of memo from attorney’s office regarding lawful changes to hearing process, c. Conflict of interest issues, d. Affirm or revise standing rules, e. Policy Complaint #7, 10. New Business a. Body Worn Cameras, b. Consider letter to Police Chief requesting to appear before PAB to give detailed reported on implementation of Council mandates on Fair & Impartial Policing, c. Training CIT, Closed Session Complaint #3, #8, #9. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=162752 

Thursday, October 28, 2021 

City Council Budget & Finance Committee at 10 am 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85993222513 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 859 9322 2513 

AGENDA: 2. Presentation from Budget Office on Budget Process Survey, 3. Council’s Fiscal Policies, 4. Cash v. Accrual Basis Accounting, 5. Housing Trust Fund Resources. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Budget___Finance.aspx 

Mental Health Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/96361748103 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 963 6174 8103 

AGENDA: 4. MH Report and Caseload Statistics, 5. Narrative report on qualifications for future BMH Staff, 6. Specialized Care Unit, 7. Re-Imagining Public Safety Task Force Update, 8. Santa Rita Jail Subcommittee Report, 9. Whole Person Care – Community Health Records Update, MHSA INN Homeless Encampment Wellness Project. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Commissions/Commissions__Mental_Health_Commission_Homepage.aspx 

Zoning Adjustment Board at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86503304208 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 833 548 0282 

AGENDA: 2. 2411 Sixth Street – on consent – alter and expand 975 sq ft Single-family Dwelling (SFD), add 2^nd story within non-conforming front and side yard resulting in 2051 sq ft SFD on 4154 sq ft lot, 

3. 1442 Fifth Street – on consent – demolish existing SFD and construct 3 detached 3-story dwelling units on 4350 sq ft lot, 

4. 776 Page – on consent – demolish existing SFD and construct 3 detached 3-story dwelling units on 3937 sq ft lot, 

5. 1048 University – on consent – expand existing emergency pet hospital in C-W district, 

6. 2022 San Pablo – on consent – expand existing emergency pet hospital into adjacent tenant space in C-W District, 

7. 1915 Berryman – on action - demolish existing 3-unit residential building and construct 4-story residential building with 11 units. 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/zoningadjustmentsboard/ 

Hopkins Corridor Traffic and Placemaking Study Virtual Workshop #3 at 6 -7:45 pm 

Register at https://bit.ly/3ksPxxo 

AGENDA: CoB is studying transportation safety and placemaking for Hopkins Corridor from Gilman to Sutter Street in North Berkeley, Review conceptual plans landscape, gathering places, public art, near-term and long-term corridor-wide design alternatives. 

Questions? Contact: Beth Thomas bathomas@cityofberkeley.info, 510-981-7068 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hopkins-corridor-study-community-workshop-3-tickets-176506454557 

Willard Park Clubhouse Community Meeting at 6:30 – 8 pm 

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/82304828529 

Teleconference: not given – (try 1-669-900-6833) Meeting ID: 823 0482 Passcode: 693231 

AGENDA: Clubhouse Replacement Project final design. 

Friday, October 29, 2021 No City meetings or events found 

Saturday, October 30, 2021 

Roller Skate BOOgie at 11 am – 4 pm at Grove Park 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/CalendarEventMain.aspx?calendarEventID=17505 

Sunday, October 31, 2021 Halloween - No City meetings or events found 

____________________ 

Agenda and Rules Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84225555460 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 (toll free) Meeting ID: 842 2555 5460 

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

DRAFT AGENDA: November 9, 2021, Regular City Council meeting at 6 pm 

CONSENT: 1. Ratify COVID Emergency, 2. Bid Solicitations, 3. Grant Applications Prop 68 (parks), 4. Accept grant Selective Traffic Enforcement Program (STEP), 5. Board of Library Trustees Reappoint Amy Roth, 6. Arreguin – Berkeley Holiday Fund, 7. Arreguin – United Against Hate Week, 8. Taplin, Co-sponsors Bartlett, Robinson, Hahn - Affordable Housing Overlay Refer to CM and Planning Commission, 9. Taplin, co-sponsor Bartlett – Budget Referral Berkeley Ceasefire $200,000 Gun Violence Prevention program (GVI) , 10. Taplin – Budget Referral $100,000 Annual Appropriations for Strawberry Creek Lodge, 11. Taplin – Budget Referral West Berkeley Residential Preferential Parking – expands restricted parking to west Berkeley – streets to be included not defined, 12. Taplin, co-sponsor – Resolution Recognizing Housing as a Human Right, Referral to CM Begin Developing Social Housing, includes up to $300,000 for one or more consultants, application to meet housing needs of moderate, low, very low and extremely low income households, 13. Bartlett - Budget Referral $200,000Homeless Outreach Coordinator for South Shattuck at Dwight Way to Adeline at 62^nd Street, 14. Hahn - Budget Referral $50,000 Solano-Peralta Park restoration and improvements, 15. Wengraf – Resolution recommending Berkeley evacuation routes from High Fire Hazard Severity Zone be considered in PG&E Safety Initiative 10,000 Miles of Undergrounding Power Utility Lines, ACTION: 16. CM (Buddenhagen) - Public Hearing Resolution to initiate a $114,228 lien on property at 2800 Garber for Administrative Citations, 17. Taplin – Referral to CM and Planning Commission amendments to zoning code to Streamlining Toxic Remediation in Manufacturing Districts, 18. Hahn, co-sponsors Harrison, Bartlett – Bright Streets, to improve street conditions within two blocks of public schools, i.e. paint crosswalks, bike lanes, parking, handicapped parking, etc by August 15 each year starting with 2022. 

_____________________ 

October 26, 2021 - City Council Regular Meeting at 6 pm, 

Email: council@cityofberkeley.info 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87152148000 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 871 5214 8000 

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

CONSENT: 1. 2^nd Reading Ghost Gun Ordinance, 2. Resolution continuing meetings via video and teleconference, 3. Referral Response Amending City Council Budget Expenditure and Reimbursement Policies, 4. Appointment of Emergency Standby Officer for District 2 and accept resignation from District 5. Revised conflict of interest code, 6. Minutes, 7. Add $548,096 total $1,657,618 and extend to 9-30-2022 with Dorothy Day House for adding RV dwellers at 742 Grayson, 8. $300,000 Bid solicitations – Parking meter fund, 9. Contract $100,000 with Federal Engineering, Inc for prioritized dispatch consulting 11-1-2021 to 10-30-2022 with option to extend for 2 2-yr terms for total not to exceed $300,000, 10. Contract add $287,712 total $657,712 with B.O.S.S. for property management at 2111 McKinley a supported housing site for mental health division clients, 11. Contract add $9,900 total $103,500 and extend to 12-31-2021 with Sonya Dublin Consulting as external evaluator tobacco prevention program, 12. Contract $450,000 with Discovery Health Services for weekly onside employee COVID-19 testing 11-1-2021 to 11-1-2022, 13. Contract $112,000 with Voya for 3^rd Party COBRA Administration and Retiree Health Premium Assistance Plan Administration, 14. Resolution Authorizing an amendment to CalPERS Pursuant to CA Gov Code 20516, 15. Revise Housing Inspector Classification and Salary, 16. Add Housing Inspector I, Housing Inspector II and Senior Housing Inspector Classification and Salaries, 17. $1,939,538 to purchase through NASPO (National Association of State Procurement) Dell Computers, hardware, software and related services 10-26-2021 to 6-30-2023 $1,019,769 in FY22 and 919,769 in FY23, 18. Contract add $14,625 total $97,436 with Communication Strategies for Consulting Services for Voice Over IP and billing audit of AT&T 7-1-2017 to 6-30-2023, 19. Grant Application $897,000 San Francisco Restoration Authority Measure AA for pre-construction and improvement documents at Aquatic Park, 20. Grant Application $20,000 Boating Safety and Enforcement Equipment, 21. Renewal Elmwood Ave BID for FY2022, 22. Renewal Solano Ave BID for FY 2022, 23. Taplin – Budget Referral for funding of Reckless Driving and Slideshow Deterrence, 24. Taplin – Budget referral sidewalk repair on arterial streets, 25. Taplin – Grant Application to CA Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) Grant Program to provide resources for community safety initiatives, 26. Bartlett, co-sponsor Harrison – Presentation Request Study to Achieve Equity in City Contracting for Mason Tillman Assoc to present finding and recommendations from Berkeley Inclusion Opportunity Index, 27. Hahn, so-sponsors Arreguin, Bartlett, Harrison – Support Net Energy Metering, 28. Robinson - Amend City Council Rules of Procedure and Order to Allow Extension of Items in Committee in Writing, 29. Robinson, co-sponsors Arreguin, Bartlett, Harrison - Budget referral $50,000 Public Bank East Bay, 30. Robinson – Budget referral - $60,000 Durant Parklett and Telegraph Plaza Improvements, 31. Robinson , co-sponsor Arreguin, Hahn – Budget referral $500,000 Telegraph Shared Streets Feasibility study, ACTION: 32. Amendments to ADU Ordinance, 33. Proposed Amendment to Paragraph NN of BMC Section 19.48.020 adopting building standard which is more restrictive than CA Fire Code standard, requires installation of fire sprinklers in new structures and retrofit fire sprinklers into existing structures in Fire Zone 3 & Fire Zone 2, 34. Identifying City Council referrals for Removal, 35. Amending Berkeley Election Reform Act (BERA) Officeholder Accounts, 36. Objective Standards Recommendations for Density, Design and Shadow, 37. Letter to Senate Budget Committee Chair Sen Skinner Regarding Berkeley Pier, 38. Harrison, co-sponsor Bartlett - Budget Referral to Support Pilot Program Offering Free AC Transit on Sundays in Berkeley, 39. Parks Commission - Proposal to Allocate Revenues Generated by Transient Occupancy Tax (hotel tax) in the Waterfront to the Marina Fund to avoid insolvency, INFORMATION REPORTS: 40. Annual Commission Attendance and Meeting Frequency Report, 41. Senior Center Survey Results, 42. Parks and Waterfront Commission Work Plan for 2021-2022. 

____________________ 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date TBD 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date TBD 

Notice of Decision (NOD) and Use Permits with End of Appeal Period,  

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

2759 Dohr – repair garage and add ½ bath10-21-2021 

1442 Fifth – Demolition of SFD, construction of 3 new SFD 10-28-2021 

620 Harrison – install new illuminated signage 11-2-2021 

1516 Hopkins – alter & add 2^nd story addition, unenclosed hot tub 10-14-2021 

776 Page – Demolition of SFD, construction of 3 new SFD 10-28-2021 

1205 Peralta – conversion of existing garage 

2622 San Pablo – establish play area for Chess School and waive required off-street parking 10-28-2021 

2709 San Pablo – New veterinary clinic thru conversion of existing space 11-2-2021 

1798 Scenic – Change use 2 buildings Pacific School of Religion to middle school for up to 140 students 11-2-2021 

2600 Tenth – change 15,584 sq ft from media production to office use 10-28-2021 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications_in_Appeal_Period.aspx 

LINK to Current Zoning Applications https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Land_Use_Division/Current_Zoning_Applications.aspx 

___________________ 

WORKSESSIONS 

December 7 –1. WETA/Ferry Service at the Marina, 2. Presentation by Bay Restoration Authority, 3. Update Zero Waste Rates and Priorities, 

January 20 (Thursday) - Review and Update on City’s COVID-19 Response 

February 15 – Homeless and Mental Health Services 

March 15 – Housing Element 

April 19 – Fire Department Standards of Coverage Study 

Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations 

Cannabis Health Considerations 

Alameda County LAFCO Presentation 

Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program 

Civic Center – Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building 

Mid-Year Budget Report FY 2022 

Kelly Hammargren’s comments on what happened the preceding week can be found in the Berkeley Daily Planet www.berkeleydailyplanet.com under Activist’s Diary. 

If you have a meeting you would like included in the summary of meetings, please send a notice to kellyhammargren@gmail.com by noon on the Friday of the preceding week. 

This meeting list is also posted on the Sustainable Berkeley Coalition website. 

http://www.sustainableberkeleycoalition.com/whats-ahead.html and in the Berkeley Daily Planet under activist’s calendar http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com 

If you or someone you know wishes to receive the weekly summary as soon as it is completed, email kellyhammargren@gmail.com to be added to the early email list. If you wish to stop receiving the Weekly Summary of City Meetings please forward the weekly summary you received to kellyhammargren@gmail.com 

On Tuesday Oct. 26, 2021 Council will be taking up the issue of solar protection for existing properties. Please send them an email in support of item 36. 

Write to the Berkeley City Council and urge them to direct staff to develop solar access shadowing standards to protect rooftop solar panels from shadowing by new development built at both residential and commercial locations.  

Tell them that the “Supplemental Recommendations on Objective Standards”, submitted by Councilmembers Sophie Hahn, Kate Harrison, Susan Wengraf and Mayor Arreguin should be amended to apply the standards not just to commercial areas, but to residential areas as well.  

Send e-mail by noon, Monday October 25 to: council@cityofberkeley.info ; and copy to: clerk@cityofberkeley.info (Even if you’ve previously sent email on this topic, it’s important that the Council hear from you again regarding protection for residential districts.)  

Comment at next Tuesday’s Council meeting via zoom. To access the meeting use this URL: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87152148000. The Meeting starts at 6 p.m., but item 36 on objective standards will not be discussed until later in the evening.  

Recent state law allows cities to protect solar access with “objective standards” as part of the design requirements for new housing. Currently Berkeley lacks objective solar access and shadowing standards that many other cities have already enacted. Berkeley has yet to protect rooftop solar panels, even though Berkeley was designated as a Solar America City by U.S. Department of Energy in 2007. Sadly, the absence of standards and codes has already allowed cases where solar panels have been shadowed by new development.  

In your email: Tell the City Council and Mayor Arreguin that “Objective standards” should require any new construction to PROTECT SOLAR ACCESS on any nearby roof, up until one hour before sundown very day of the year.  

Background:  

Item 36 on the Tuesday, October 26 Berkeley City Council agenda addresses solar access and other objective standards to guide development. This item was continued from the October 12 meeting. Supplemental recommendations recently submitted by councilmembers Hahn, Harrison, Wengraf and Arreguin offer specific recommendations that address many concerns about protecting solar access. They are a good start, but need to be strengthened. In the current form they would not apply to residentially zoned areas. The standards would apply to potential shadowing of nearby residential buildings by new development on a commercial street like Shattuck or San Pablo, but they would not apply to shadowing of one residential property by an adjacent residential property.  

Berkeley is expected to plan for 9,000 new housing units in the next eight years. In Berkeley, where most lots are small – increased density, without common sense guidelines – will result in dramatic decreases in sun for solar panels, main windows, and gardens. Given the Council’s push for more and denser housing in residential neighborhoods, shadowing standards are clearly needed in those areas too to shape development so that it doesn’t come at the expense of access to sunlight.  

To see the supplemental recommendations, click on Supplemental Material under Item 36 on the agenda for the October 26 meeting: https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/City_Council/2021/10_Oct/City_Council__10-26-2021_-_Regular_Meeting_Agenda.aspx  

Berkeley has 3,000 roof top solar installations. This cuts down on our carbon footprint, provides resilience, and generates electricity. The combined effects of climate change, rolling blackouts, and the increase of electric cars means that roof top solar panels are the most efficient, most resilient answer for our own power. Don’t let the City jeopardize this valuable resource in the face of climate change. Don’t devalue resident’s investments in solar panels and food production. With reasonable setbacks and design adjustments, we can have more housing without reducing solar access.  

Thousands of years ago, Mayan pyramids and Stonehenge used the sun to guide their design. If our ancestors could do it, so can Berkeley architects using computerized design systems with built-in “shade studies” to accurately predict the loss of solar access created by any design.  

PROTECT SOLAR ACCESS FOR BERKELEY HOMES.  

More housing AND more solar energy. 

Berkeley Neighborhoods Council (BNC) 

Check out our website for up to date information and resources: 

berkeleyneighborhoodscouncil.com 

In the first eight months of the George W. Bush administration, Powell lost bruising battles with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other neocons, who were really running the administration. Powell was chosen to deliver false claims of overseas threats because his international gravitas and respect. 

While serving as secretary of state under President G.W, Bush, General Powell played a pivotal role in paving the way for the U.S. invasion. It was February 5th, 2003, that Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council and made the case for a first strike on Iraq. Powell’s message was clear: “Iraq possessed extremely dangerous weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam Hussein was systematically trying to deceive U.N inspectors by hiding the prohibited weapons”. the U.S. invasion and occupation killed over 1 million Iraqis and destroyed, much of their country. 

All of Colin Powell’s main claims about weapons of mass destruction turned out to be completely false. He later described the speech as a “blot” on his record. 

In 1991, during the first Persian Gulf War, the U.S. bombed Iraq’s only baby formula factory. At the time, General Powell said, quote, “It is not an infant formula factory. It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure.” . U.N. investigators later confirmed the bombed factory was in fact making baby formula. 

He served two tours in Vietnam. He was later accused of helping to whitewash the My Lai massacre, when U.S. soldiers slaughtered up to 500 villagers, most of them women and children and the elderly. 

Powell spent 35 years in the military, rising to chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In the 1980s, he helped shape U.S. military policy in Latin America at a time when U.S.-backed forces killed hundreds of thousands of people in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala and other countries. Powell also helped oversee the U.S. invasion of Panama and the Persian Gulf Wars. 

Powell retired into relative obscurity tormented by the false messages he delivered on behalf of political bosses who are guilty of horrific war crimes.

How Do You Know When Waste Is "Excessive"?

On October 25, the Chronicle reported that 23 members of Congress had signed on to Rep. Zoe Lofgren's letter to the Department of Homeland Security demanding the closure of three notorious ICE detention facilities in California. "For years, under multiple administrations, these facilities have been operating in a substandard manner resulting in repeated violations … and excessive waste of federal funds."

Did you notice the critical adjective "excessive"? Apparently the assumption is that a good deal of federal funds will always be wasted but sometimes the corruption is so egregious you need to append the qualifier "excessive."

Toward the end of the article, Chronicle reporter Deepa Fernandez provides this illumination: "The letter also accuses the federal government of wasting $1.34 million a day on unused detention beds."

That means we're paying an annual cost of $489 million for "empty beds." I'd say that's a pretty good example of "excessive. 

Reich On! 

Berkeley Prof. and MoveOn mover-and-shaker Robert Reich has added a new dimension to the demeanor of Democrat-In-Name-Only Joe Manchin, The West Virginia Senator is not just pro-coal because of his state's historic dependence on the polluting Carbon Economy. Nope, Reich noted in a recent Tweet: For Joe, coalmines are personal. Here's Reich's tweet:
"Do you think Joe Manchin opposes climate spending because he’s concerned about the costs? Or do you think it’s because he personally founded two coal companies in the 1980s, which are now led by his son, and his entire family’s fortune relies on the fossil fuel industry?" 

Fashion Plates 

Recently spotted: A Chevy Silverado with a license plate that read: QUITWHY. I'm guessing it's owned by some dude who really likes his job and has no interest in retiring. 

Also spotted: a parked jeep painted an eye-popping pink. The license plate remains a puzzle: TAJGLAM. Is it possible this flamboyant vehicle participates in Drag Races? 

A Subaru parked in a Walgreen's parking lot stood out by dint of the five plastic skeletons attached to the roof and seated side-by-side in a protective guardrail surrounding the trunk. (One of the skeletons has its right arm attached to its spinal column.) A large decal on the rear window appears to read DOWNSINCEDAY but that only raises an additional riddle. The license plate may offer a clue to this apparition but I haven't been able to break the code: The plate reads: TRNS UWU. 

Leaked Video — Billionaire Plots Against Billionaires Tax 

Recent polling shows that in 37 swing congressional districts, support for Joe Biden's Build Back Better agenda grows from a net 14 points (56-42) to a net 43 points (69-26) when voters learn the package would be funded by taxing billionaires. Similar polling shows strong popularity for taxing billionaires in West Virginia and Arizona, the respective homes of Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. 

So: how to get the word out that Build Back Better isn't about "reckless government spending," it's really about tapping into the untaxed billions of America's wealthiest tax-dodgers. 

Bold Progressives has come up with a zinger. They've just released a “Leaked Video” that appears to show a concerned Billionaire Plotting Against the Billionaire Tax. 

In new "leaked webcam video," billionaire playboy "Grayson von Trapp" (portrayed by David Cross of "Arrested Development" fame) is caught on his Smartphone conspiring with his financial advisors to thwart Democratic plans to tax billionaires to pay for health care, child care, and fighting climate change. Here's the video. 

Karmic Strips: Pearls Before Bears 

"Pearls Before Swine" cartoonist Stephan Pastis recently devoted a Sunday strip to memories of his last year as a student at UC Berkeley. Upon meeting Julia, a recent Berkeley graduate, Pastis is moved to revisit his happiest campus memories: "I loved my last year at Cal. The campus activities, drinking at Henry's, the football games with Aaron Rodgers… Basketball games with Jason Kidd… and going to Top Dog for late night hot dogs… And just getting to know all the other students, like at the Daily Cal meetings and the protests where we occupied Sproul Hall. And, of course, graduation at Zellerback Hall. My whole family was there." 

That must have been one heck of a "last year"—given that Jason Kidd ruled Berkeley's basketball courts in 1994 and Sproul Hall was occupied by Free Speech Movement activists in 1964. 

After recapping his glory days at UC, Cartoon Pastis asks Julia "How'd you enjoy the experience" of attending UC? Julia's distraught Covid-era reply: "I sat in my bedroom and started at a computer screen." 

In the final panel, Julia is missing and Cartoon Pastis asks: "Is she still crying in the bathroom?" 

Wes' Latest Work's a Waste—but Pretty 

Kudos to Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle for finding the perfect literary quote to critique Wes Anderson's latest exercise in cookie-cutter storybook filmmaking. LaSalle tags "The French Dispatch" as a perfect "cautionary example of what the writer Dashiell Hammett meant when he said: 'It's the beginning of the end when you discover you have style." 

LaSalle's point is that Anderson's pretty-but -shallow tales are like a novel without any hint of novelty. At least, Anderson gets some credit for setting his fable in a fictitious French village named Ennui-sur-Blasé (which LaSalle translates as "Boredom-on-Jaded"). 

A Truly Berkeley Event 

Phoebe Ann Sorgen, one of the spark-plug organizers of Wireless Radiation Education Defense (WIRED) and a leader of the local 5G rebellion, recently emailed a dispatch that captures the vitality of Berkeley's many public policy campaigns. (Reposted here with permission): 

"Though the WiRED Yard Sale was a LOT of work, we had a great time and exceeded our goal, so we’ll be able to pay our attorney’s final bill. YAYYY 

"Thanks to Stephanie T for the educational table with literature near the entrance, so shoppers became better informed re wireless radiation risks and safety tips, and to Sarah A for the excellent “Generation Zapped” DVD's. 

"We had amazing conversations all weekend and made good connections. SO many wonderful people pitched in, too many to name, but special gratitude to Diana B and Beth J who were there with me all day Sat., and Greg and Meave, there a good chunk of both days. 

"Big gratitude for the generosity of the many people who volunteered; donated goods to sell, food, and/or $; helped publicize and organize the sale; and who shopped and schmoozed. 

"Thanks much to the Green Party of Alameda County who consensed w/ the other orgs in that legendary collective (Copwatch, Prison Literary Project, etc) to let us use the Grassroots House backyard. We hope to pay an honorarium towards bldg & grounds upkeep. 

"A guitarist serenaded us for a couple of hours Sat. We played recorded music on Sun. 

We got a kick out of some of the donations. “My Lobotomy”! A Pandemic board game made in 1995! A bottle of sweet red vampire wine that sported a black velvet cape! Gorgeous pottery, glassware, artwork. 

Last night, over half of the leftovers had been taken from the sidewalk at 2022 Blake Street. It’s good that someone(s) took the leftover books, and that KO took clothes/shoes to the Omni for homeless people, because rain is expected tonight. After tarping the pile Sunday evening, when I was removing signs, a nice homeless guy offered help. (He has a tent on Shattuck, said a police raid is expected this Fri.) 

"If you spot any signs we missed (near the Farmers Market?), pls put them in a recycle bin. 

"Go WiRED! And Go Berkeleyans and allies who uphold humane Berkeley values! It took a community, and so many of you came through! 

"PS: If anyone knows how to contact a thin, Black woman named Ramonda, let me know offlist. I found the ivory pear she wanted, but someone bought “The New Jim Crow” before she returned for it Sunday morning. Fortunately for us, while searching for the pear, she and her daughter discovered other treasures. 

Meet the 2021 Brower Youth Award Winners 

On October 14 and 19, Berkeley's Earth Island Institute celebrated the latest slate of young activists to be honored as recipients of the David Brower Youth Awards (BYA). The six activists saluted for their achievements and leadership in environmental and social justice movements included: David Baldwin, Alexandria Gordon, Peter Pham, Alexia Leclercq, Artemisio Romero y Carver, and Sonja Michaluk. 

If you missed the live and virtual events, you can still experience the BYA by watching the online postings of 2021 ceremony and the subsequent Meet the Winners Q&A session. Winner profile films and speeches are now posted on the BYA website and YouTube channel. 

Shameless Fakery of the First Order 

The Internet is becoming a weird, unreliable world unto itself—an alternate-reality universe of fraudulent news and fictitious "truths" promulgated by cults, clowns, and Qanon. 

Case in point: The same day that Bill Clinton was reported to be recovering from an infection in a California hospital, an outlet called "Real Raw News" was reporting that the former president had died from poisoning during his incarceration at the Guantanamo prison complex in Cuba. Clinton reportedly had been found "face-down in a puddle of vomit." The article was filled with copious details, source references, and names of quoted individuals. 

Politifact and other legitimate news services had to go online to assure visitors that the former president was still among the living. 

Real Raw News has uploaded a slew of breaking stories "overlooked" by the mainstream press. Here's a current sampling: Colin Powell Committed Suicide, Hunter Biden Hanged at GITMO, Chelsea Clinton to Face Military Tribunal, Hillary Clinton Hanged at GITMO, Military Arrests Andrew Cuomo, Bill Gates Hanged at GITMO, Fake Biden Receives Fake Booster on National Television. 

All these stories were written by Michael Baxter, a self-described "former English teacher." High on its website, RRN claims it "explores content often avoided by the mainstream media." But hidden far down at the bottom is a disclaimer—added "for our protection, on the advice of legal council." The disclaimer reads: "This website contains humor, parody, and satire." 

Apparently RRN's hundreds of thousands of faithful followers have never noticed that disclaimer because they continue to fill the site with the endless rants of true believers. 

Here's a sample reaction to the report that Hillary Clinton had been lynched at GITMO. "Rene" writes:
"Bill Clinton is already with her in Hell having a party with their God Satan. What was executed was an official execution, of a clone, the way I understand, both of them were executed in 2919 [sic]. Barak [sic] Obama was also executed with his trans husband…." 

DoobTube Videos Conjure Fictitious Superpower Conflicts 

It's always a bother to spot something on YouTube that features an intriguing "front-door" photo only to discover that the inside content contains no trace of the advertised image. Apparently creating "fake come-on" images to promote clicking on dubious videos (aka "DoobTubes") is an "offense to reality" that now has become a reality. 

Even worse, there are videos that pretend to be offering news but are actually designed to capture eyeballs with raunchy, sensationalistic "news" that has little-to-no basis in reality. 

But even more concerning—and potentially threatening—are the hair-raising video reports on military superpower conflicts that appear on websites like USA Post, US Military Defence, American Patriot Military, Today News Post, You News2, The Specifications, US Defense Line, and US Daily Military. 

For months, these sites have been posting reports of blazing armed confrontations as the US Navy confronted Chinese fishing fleets hunting for squid off Ecuador's Galapagos Islands. The Chinese-vessels-hunting-for-squid part is true but these DoobTube reports have also claimed: "US Navy arrests and sinks 300 China illegal fishing boats." Sometimes the videos report it was the US Coast Guard, not the Navy, that attacked and destroyed China's fishing fleet. While the videos appear convincing, there is no corroboration for these massive Superpower sea-battles to be found in legitimate news sources. 

A report from Armed BN claims the US and Japan joined forces to "sink 2,586 illegal China fishing boats in the Sea of Japan." The same site uses a slightly altered version of the same cover photo for a story headlined: "US Navy sends 50,000 troops to sink illegal China fishing boat in breach in Pacific." 

In other never-happened confrontations, Argentina, Indonesia, Japan, and Russia are reported to have destroyed hundreds of Chinese vessels in their local waters. The videos offer compelling visuals of high-seas combat that seem to provide convincing evidence of these epic "Fish War" clashes around the world. The only problem is, there is no substantiated reporting of these epic collisions on any reputable mainstream newsite. 

On October 22, a DoobTube site called US Defense Line reported: "High Alert!!" Beijing Threatens to Invade US After Taking Control of Entire South China Sea." 

The videos are advertised with photoshopped images of an apocalyptic battle involving scores of battleships, squadrons of dive-bombing aircraft, erupting explosions, and skies filled with billowing black smoke. Only problem: It never happened. 

Two weeks ago, Today News Post uploaded a news story headlined "US military shoots down Chinese jet to protect Taiwanese Territory" accompanied by two photos of a military jet falling from the sky in flames. There was no mention of this alleged shoot-down in the actual video—let alone any footage of a Chinese fighter jet tumbling out of the sky, engulfed in flames. 

These DoobTube videosites are plentiful and they appear to be well-funded. As to their purpose, that's a puzzle. Who would benefit from stoking suspicion and fear among the world's leading military superpowers? The global arms industry? 

Useful Tip: Tools to help detect and combat faux news can be downloaded from the Arizona State University's News Co/Lab. 

The Founders Sing: "Who Are You? (Manchin, That's Who)" 

We’re going to change the lighting in this room. It’s time to make it darker, to reflect the long dark night ahead.

Even someone as old as I am has a good chance of living long enough to see most of old Boston slip into the sea as Greenland empties itself of ice.

Before we see 2030 we will sail quickly and quietly past a committed 1.5°C global average temperature increase relative to pre-industrial society. Will make 2°C by morning. Your children will die of this.

The Conference of Parties at the U.N., the world climate meeting at which Joe Jim-Crow Biden’s delegates will smile and glad-hand while announcing their intention to do nothing and thereby slaughter billions is happening soon. I can not find a climate scientist who doesn’t believe this meeting is the last hope for political solutions – and that it will fail. 

Your children are going to die in a hot, thirsty, violent future from which there will be no human recovery. This is the climate emergency. It is that bad. I’m not even being dramatic. I am speaking literally. 

Of course there is a way to turn things around. Hell, you even lived through a test run in April 2020 when enough of the economy simply shut down to bring emissions down something like 7%, overnight. The only drawbacks? They won’t let people have food without a paycheck (for no good reason) and there was a slight delay and shortage of some essential commodities like toilet paper while the kinks were worked. Emissions must fall to near 0 over the next few years. A lot more has to be turned off than just the lights in a room you aren’t occupying. 

But like morons we rushed to reopen. Analogous to the time early in the pandemic when our Mayor Arreguín and then vice Mayor Sophie Hahn tried to draw a crowd to a downtown restaurant in spite of the completely obvious insane risk to public health, our society simply demands like petulant children screaming and lying down on the grocery store floor not to step even a bit away from the political and economic order that will within just this decade put the final nail in the coffin of its own children. 

At this week’s city council meeting council will vote a 2nd time to surround the remaining Black people in Berkeley with 24/7 surveillance cameras. Or maybe they’ll pass a fake public safety measure against so-called ghost guns, protecting gun profit and the prison industry and not preventing any actual violence. 

It’s funny to listen to them try to sound important and knowledgeable. They will rubber-stamp a bunch of contracts the City Manager has doled out. They will try to sound like what they think important people are supposed to sound like. 

There is nothing on Tuesday’s agenda to suggest any member of council even knows there is a climate emergency. Nothing about how the people of a town might survive the abrupt cut off of fossil fuel supply now needed. 

Your children are going to die in a hot, thirsty, violent future from which there will be no human recovery. This is the climate emergency. It is that bad. I’m not even being dramatic. Their fate will be sealed this decade. We can’t “just act cool” our way out of it.

On Monday, Indigenous Peoples’ Day. I opened my email to see this note from James McFadden:

"This 'Berkeley Together' effort seems more like an attempt to divide Berkeley -- perhaps they should be renamed 'Berkeley Divided.' The most privileged are organizing to get an exemption from development -- assuming loss of local zoning control is ok as long as it doesn't impact them. It looks like the hill people are throwing the flats under the development bus rather than forming a united front to fight this developer grab of power and neoliberal deregulation/disempowerment of cities."

There was a time when I might have felt the same knee jerk reaction, but I’ve been thinking a lot about how climate change and climate catastrophes are going to change where and how we live. This morning my first podcast of the day was “The Daily” from the New York Times “Which towns are worth saving” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/11/podcasts/the-daily/climate-crisis-resilience.html We might extend that to which parts of towns should be abandoned and when is retreat the best choice?

My niece and I talked not so long ago about how we are going to see climate refugees from within our own country as parts of the US become uninhabitable. How many times should an area be rebuilt? Or, should there even be expansion in cities like Phoenix with a future like 118° on June 17^th? Homeowners in the hills are finding it ever more difficult to secure fire insurance. When the hills burn again as they likely will despite our efforts to prevent such an event, should they be rebuilt? At the very least should we be putting more people in an area where they may be trapped, unable to evacuate as in the Berkeley Oakland Hills fire in 1991 where 25 people died? The opposite side of the city will be impacted by sea level rise, with a best case scenario now 10 feet, not 6 feet.

We may find that as our electeds recoil from having to say the dreaded word “retreat” it will be the insurance companies that assess the risk and drive the response. 

Tuesday started with a demonstration of the online mapping tool for redistricting. There were only four of us attending so we got a very special demonstration with all of our questions answered by Mark Numainville, City Clerk. The results of the 2020 census show shifts in population sufficient to require redrawing the city council districts. It is unlikely that the district borders will change very much, but I am set on submitting at least one if not more versions before the deadline on November 15th. 

There will be another demonstration on Thursday, October 21 at 5 pm. Check the Activist’s Calendar for the links. 

I missed the agenda committee and went to the minutes and audio-recording. The City Manager was given 60 days to write a companion report on the Adopt-a-Spot budget referral, which means it won’t be considered until next June instead of November. Scott Ferris will be the actual author of the companion report per his own statements, so soon we will see what he really thinks of the work of the Parks and Waterfront Commission. 

Councilmember Taplin pulled his proposed ordinance for punitive damages for unauthorized removal of coastal oaks and tree replacement requirements. 

I’ve been writing for weeks on ecosystems, biodiversity and the importance of oaks as keystone plants in supporting hundreds of species of insects. We should be choosing which plants go in the ground by how many species they support, not just drought tolerance. Although I have no inside information on what happened, my suspicion is that development pressure and objections from the city foresters are at the bottom of this, pushing Taplin’s withdrawal of an ordinance with real teeth. This brings us to 1915 Berryman, where the new owner plans to demolish the existing structure and construct an eleven-unit four-story building. Five coastal oaks are reported as having been removed without authorization and six remain. There is a petition to require protections of the remaining oaks during construction to be signed at 1231 Bonita (drop by to sign 10 – 5 pm Monday and 12 – 6 pm Tuesday). 

The evening city council meeting started 1 ½ hours late. The preceding closed session contained only two items, the hiring of the new fire chief which has already been announced and the evaluation of the City Manager. I certainly wish I knew what generated a discussion that pushed the council meeting to start at 7:30 pm. Objective building standards were put off until October 26^th along with several other items. 

It was Taplin and Kesarwani’s budget referral, item 20 on consent, for $500,000 for security cameras in the public right of way that was the subject of considerable public and council comment. We could hear the distress from the residents of District 2 who described hearing gunfire and supported the installation of cameras as the answer, convinced that if cameras are present, gunfire will cease. The opposition came from the public who were concerned about increasing surveillance, who and what entities will have access to recordings, how the recordings will be used and how long recordings will be retained. Harrison and Hahn tried to insert some controls regulating the surveillance, but Taplin and Kesarwani would not budge. 

Monitoring two city meetings running simultaneously doesn’t work very well, but I still tried on Wednesday to monitor the Homeless Commission and the Parks and Waterfront Commission. Peter Radu, the City Homeless Services Coordinator, was present for a Q&A with the commission on the enforcement of the sidewalk and RV ordinances. That took up nearly the entire meeting. The presentation with charts of the number of homeless participants in Roomkey (44), Horizon (33), Emergency Choice Vouchers (43) and Continuous Care Permanent Housing ( 381) was displayed at the meeting, but not posted for further review. There were more questions than answers. I left feeling that the homeless will soon be chased again from one place to another. 

At Parks, when item 14. Native Species Planting in Berkeley came up for discussion, Scott Ferris said there wasn’t a referral. Brennan Cox spoke, saying none of this was necessary as there are already laws requiring drought tolerant plants, native and “Native Adaptive.” https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Planning_and_Development/Energy_and_Sustainable_Development/Water_Efficient_Landscape.aspx If you have watched any of the Douglas Tallamy videos that I have posted week after week or read any of his books, then you would know that “Native Adaptive” means imported plants (often called exotics) from other parts of the world that can be drought tolerant, but do nothing to support native pollinators, native species. The answer is in Nature’s Best Hope A New Approach to Conservation that starts in your yard. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAzDP0wQI78 

Without milkweed for Monarch caterpillars to eat there are no Monarch butterflies. Without the pipevine plant there is no food for pipevine caterpillars and thus no native pipevine swallowtail butterflies. Monarchs may winter on the invasive eucalyptus, but when spring comes the Monarch lays its eggs on milkweed and the caterpillar will feed and grow and pupate and become a Monarch butterfly only if there is milkweed. This same relationship (insect and host plant) is repeated over and over in nature. Insects and plants have evolved together over thousands of years. Bringing in a drought tolerant plant from another part of the world doesn’t make it a host plant and calling the imported plant “Native Adaptive” doesn’t make it a host plant either. We need to fill our yards, gardens, open space with predominately native plants and no more than 30% as non-native that are native adaptive. 

There is nothing important to say about the Thursday Reimagining Public Safety meeting except watch next time. 

I happened to snag one of the last two copies at Pegasus of On Tyranny Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century Graphic Edition by Timothy Snyder illustrated by Nora Krug, 2021. The graphic edition is exceptional, giving us a condensed European history and pulling in Trump without ever printing his name. Being an artist in my limited free hours, I loved the illustrations. This is a book I will look at again and again. 

The other book I completed this week was Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee, 2019. After watching Frances Haugen on 60 Minutes, I was looking for more on Facebook. Too much of the book was McNamee writing about McNamee. Despite all that, it was a warning and in-depth probe into the very real damaging and dangerous impacts of Facebook into people’s lives, society, culture and governments. McNamee goes into detail about algorithms, Cambridge Analytica, and how personal data is used to hook users into staying on the platform and influencing behavior/outcomes. 

Once you start understanding the algorithms, how people are influenced, propagandized, frightened and angered, then it isn’t hard to follow the outcome of health officers, election officers and school board members being threatened. This is the poisonous side of a platform that allows families and friends to send pictures and greetings to each other. “Move Fast and Break Things” says it all. McNamee advises us to throw out Alexa and never use Facebook to sign on to anything. 

In closing, if you read the analysis of masks and respirators in Part 1 and Part 2 in CIDRAP then you will know why this is my go to source on COVID.h

In 2016, a number of U.S.diplomats, CIA officers, and other federal officials stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba suffered traumatic neurological injuries supposedly caused by some kind of sonic wave machine. No other employees or residents of the hotel where some of these diplomats were staying reported similar illnesses. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) suspect the cause is directed energy, possibly microwaves, presumably targeted at the embassy and their residences. This is a leading theory only and so far no suspects have been identified. The U.S. Department of State has referred to the events as "unexplained health incidents;” others have dubbed the incidents as the “Havana Syndrome.”  

NASEM described a typical incident, "An individual assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba was awakened one night at home in Havana in 2016 by severe pain and a sensation of intense pressure in the face, a loud piercing sound in one ear with directional features, and acute disequilibrium and nausea. Symptoms of vestibular and cognitive dysfunction ensued. A handful of other cases involving colleagues with similar features began that year, and others in the next. Few people were aware of these cases until spring 2017." 

Media reports indicate a total of 130 possible cases by the end of May 2021, rising to more than 200 possible cases by mid-September 2021. Incidents were reported by U.S. officials in Washington, D.C., China, Vietnam, Russia, Poland, Georgia; Taiwan; and Australia. Other reports came from Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Austria, Germany, and India. 

On October 10, 2021, President Biden signed into law legislation that closes a loophole in the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act that would normally not cover damage to organs such as the brain and heart. The Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act authorizes the CIA Director and the Secretary of State to provide financial support for personnel suffering brain injuries. 

Were embassy staff victims of a mysterious new secret weapon that produced the Havana Syndrome or is this just a mass psychogenic illness? As reports of incidents increase, the Havana Syndrome is getting more high-level attention. Supposably an investigation is ongoing but as yet no specific conclusions have been reached. Stay tuned.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, launched a brutal offensive against Tigray separatists which left thousands dead and over 1 million internally displaced. Meanwhile 350,000 of the country is on the brink of starvation especially children under 5 years old. This was the grim assessment of Stanley Chitekwe, chief of nutrition UNICEF Ethiopia conflict. The United Nations says it’s the worst malnutrition crisis in a decade and it’s projected to get worse unless Ethiopia lifts its brutal blockade of humanitarian aid to Tigray. 

Meanwhile, ethnic cleansing continues as new reports have emerged exposing large shipment of arms being transported on Ethiopia’s flagship, Ethiopia Airlines, s in complete violation of aviation regulations. Ethiopian Airlines is a state-owned economic powerhouse that generates billions of dollars a year carrying passengers to hubs across the African continent and all over the world, and it is also a member of the Star Alliance, a group of some of the world's top aviation companies.  

The Biden administration and Boeing have a critical role to play to halt the genocide n Tigray by demanding Ethiopia stop using its commercial airlines as weapons of war and call for an immediate cessation to hostilities. Does Boeing’s profits trump concerns for human life? Meanwhile, the Nobel Committee should immediately withdraw its Peace prize from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Today, major US networks have reported massive aerial bombardments whose gruesome purpose is to kill as many Tigrayans as possible.

From a 2004 Planet editorial about a fundraiser for the developers’ candidates in a Berkeley election:

Berkeley author Thacher Hurd has a book for the 4 to 8 set which, with wonderful pictures, tells the story of how Miles Possum and his band of little swamp critters are invited to play for the Alligators’ Ball. After the music stops, the alligators are hungry. “What’s for dinner?” says Miles. “Something tender! Something juicy!” says an alligator, holding a menu behind his back that features “Swamp Band Soup.” On the next page, “the alligators snapped their jaws and snapped their lips” as they drag the struggling band members ever closer to a big boiling pot.

As a Cajun might say about an Alligators’Ball, “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. ” In colloquial English: “Same-old same-old.”

Last week, more than a decade later, someone sent me an emailed invitation to what’s billed as the YIMBY Gala, featuring a curated selection of Bay Area elected officials as the tender and juicy menu items du jour. 

It’s headlined as A Party You Don’t Want To Miss! 

Here’s the pitch: 

“Join us for an evening of beautiful company, food, drinks, and revelry in celebration of a year of wins for the pro-housing movement! Our Fifth Annual Bay Area YIMBY Gala is on Friday, November 5th at 6:30p. 

“The YIMBY Gala is bringing together housing advocates, elected leaders, lawmakers, home builders, architects, and members of the housing community.” 

All you need to do is: BUY YOUR TICKET. It’s access on tap, right here in River City. 

But just a minute, before you click through to buy those $125 and $250 tickets, you might ask who/what a YIMBY is. 

The acronym comes from Yes In My Back Yard, but it really means Yes in Your Back Yard. 

Most often, a YIMBY is an under-forty who’s still a fervent believer in the old supplyside economic theories they learned in their high school economics class or in the watered down Econ 101 dicta they imbibed in college. 

For a great insight into a typical Yimby mind, read this op-ed on berkeleyside.org, and don’t miss the comments. 

People like this guy believe that if we build a whole bunch of market rate (i.e.here in the Bay, pricey) apartment developments, some sort of housing will surely trickle down to supply the low end of the market. They also believe that there’s a housing crisis because, simultaneously, a lot of people are moving out of California and a lot more are moving into California. 

That stuff is just not true. 

Granted, we have an affordable housing crisis, but there’s no overall housing shortage. It’s too much for me to explain here--the academic consensus is conclusive but complicated. 

If you don’t already understand this, you should read Tim Redmond’s excellent piece in 48hills.org and click on the links in it for the full picture. 

But if and when you click on BUY YOUR TICKET you’ll learn a number of valuable things from the Yimbys’ event page. First, take a look at the section headed “Sponsors” at the top. You’ll learn that it’s the logos of a list of developers, plus some of the lawyers, political consultants and flacks who cater to developers. You can click on each logo icon to learn more about who they are. 

Then scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, where you’ll find an orange strip with more clickable logos. These belong to just some of the many fronts who claim the YIMBY mantle. Besides these, there are even more YIMBY groups whose agit-prop hits my email daily: e.g. California Yimby, East Bay for Everyone, Yimby Law and even, god forbid, Yimby Jewish. 

These numerous organizations seem to have interlocking directorates and memberships as revealed on their web pages. Several of them include Sonja Trauss, foundress of the immortal SF BARF (Bay Area Renters Federation). Collectively, they’ve developed a good grip on how you turn out the virtual troops when there’s a Zoomed hearing anywhere and the use of real names or locations is not mandated. 

If you get most of your news from what our brethren on the far right call the MainStreamMedia, some of this might be news to you. At my house we look for Bay Area news in two print papers, Chron and NYT, and we often listen to KQED on the radio. We also sometimes look at a variety of online publications, notably Berkeleyside, 48 Hills and the Marin Post, but if we only saw the NYT, the Chron and KQED we might believe the developers’ narrative, that there’s an overall housing crisis instead of what there really is, an affordable housing crisis 

The front page of Sunday’s Chronicle is a case in point. 

Headline: S.F.’s real housing crisis? Project-killing supes. 

What’s the San Francisco supervisors’ crime? 

Supervising! 

Keeping tabs on what’s getting built in their city, and hearing legally sanctioned citizen appeals to decisions of the quasi-adjudicatory agencies they’re tasked with supervising by the city’s charter. The nerve! 

The Supes sent a proposal to build a luxury housing project for about 500 units back to their planning commission (which functions to review project plans like Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustment Board) to complete the environmental impact analysis. The site in question is unstable fill land—a risk which supervisors said was not addressed in the project’s EIR.. In a city where the Millenium Tower is sinking, sinking, sinking, that’s inexcusable. 

The Sunday story quotes an executive of a developer-backed Yimby associated organization to justify the writer’s conclusion that ”… adding housing of all types tends to bring housing costs down for everybody and reduces displacement”, a theory which has been widely discredited, though you wouldn’t know that from reading this piece. 

So who’s on the menu for the 2021 Alligators’ Ball.? The invitation promises that “… you’ll get to hang out with Senator Scott Wiener”....and so many other City Councilmembers, Supervisors, and Housing Heroes! 

But since this is a Berkeley publication, we think the pièce de resistance, the juiciest entrée on the menu, is this one: Berkeley Councilmembers Terry Taplin, Lori Droste, and Rashi Kesarwani. Yum, yum, yum. 

Since these folks constitute the final appeal destination for decisions of Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustment Board, they presumably will have to recuse themselves if Yimby-backed projects are on their agenda in the future. And that goes for the other elected officials from various jurisdictions on tap for the Friday festivities. 

Since there’s no “Social Notes from All Over” in any Bay Area news source these days to report on who’s hanging out where and when, most Berkeleyans probably don’t realize that they’ve elected three Yimby Councilpersons with whom they’re invited to mingle at Friday’s Yimby Ball. 

Why don’t they know this? 

Why do the Chron and the NYT, the major print publications supposedly covering this area, consistently fail to report the mounting evidence that supply-side economics doesn’t work for the environmentally constrained Bay Area housing market? 

A quick study of the huge glossy real estate sections in Sunday papers confirms what Upton Sinclair figured out long ago: 

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” 

A wildly inflated real estate sales top end and accompanying market rate development fuels the printed press. Affordable housing doesn’t do that. 

And by the way, that goes for KQED radio too, where there’s a lavish study of housing needs underway with major funding from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, an outpost of the Facebook empire, which is a participant in the ongoing drive by big tech corporations to control Bay land use….but that’s a topic too large to discuss here today. 

Anyhow, Zelda Bronstein has documented it extensively on 48hills.org. Take a look. 

And if you buy a ticket to the Yimby Ball, let us know how it goes, if you don’t get eaten. 

On September 29, 2021, the Mayor of Berkeley sent out a mild call to arms for his city. It is called “The Future of Housing in Berkeley.” He calls on the city’s people to support an alleged "need" to build almost 9000 new housing units over the next 8 years. It is a tall order. The neighborhoods have been clamoring for affordable housing for years, yet their voices have been drowned out by the whispered arrogance of the developers who make their real money on market rate housing. Over the last few years, some 96% of new housing has been market rate (aka unaffordable for low income families). And still, "Sacramento" (aka California state government) has convinced this Mayor that more housing can be mandated. And he buys it.

This should be a story told in satire. But the lightness of spirit required would seem forced. If, without qualms, this Mayor accepts blithe legal assurances that the state can constitutionally impose mandates which override the autonomy of a charter city like Berkeley, 60% of whose residents are renters, is he not flirting with the truly tragic? 

Once audacious, Berkeley has now become known for its “negative-hubris.” 

Is construction just a “social construct”? 

The Mayor’s rationale for his "call" to acceptance is his thought that Berkeley’s population has supposedly increased at the rate of 1% a year. However, census figures show that the city’s population is about the same as it was 40 years ago. It dropped to a low point around 2000, and then grew at a rate somewhat less than 1% a year to a level comparable to that earlier level. Where’s the real population increase? 

And how come there are all these empty housing units in this town, apartments that have, in many cases, remained vacant and unrented for years. Are they left over from when the population dropped? Urban legend says that they number over a thousand. Half of that would still be enormous in this time of an alleged (state proclaimed) housing shortage. 

Eight years ago, when the affordability crisis was being hyped as that housing "shortage," there was a “Build-Brigade” that would come to City Council chanting “build build build.” It promised that the increase in supply would bring down prices and rent levels. Over that eight years, over a thousand new units have been built, all “market-rate,” as is the habit of for-profit developers, with only 72 units included as "affordable." Berkeley’s zoning code only calls for 20% affordable units in any new development. 

The result has been a “market-rate” glut. We see “Now Leasing” signs all over town. Yet rent levels have not gone down. Indeed, the “affordability crisis” has gotten worse. Parents who have worked to put their kids through high school here are now realizing that those children are going to have to leave town to find affordable housing. They will be joining the thousands of low income families, including a large percentage of the black residents, who have been displaced for that very reason. On the other hand, those with six figure incomes have had no trouble finding housing. 

Nevertheless, "Sacramento" pretends to mandate 9000 new units over 8 years. Actually, the number is 8934. Its level of precision betrays it as a computer-projection, derived unencumbered by any real community involvement. 

And it comes to us as "excess." While the estimated number of residence units in Berkeley is around 47,000, the mandated thousand new units a year would provide 2% increase, exceeding the Mayor’s reference to population growth. "Excess" is not only a euphemism for market glut, it also throws "affordability" to the winds. 

But we should be used to the imposition of excess by now. Congress does it when it budgets more funds for the military than the military itself requests. Congress knows that military industries have become the essential foundation of the US economy (by default, since most heavy industries have moved offshore -- with federal subsidies). That and urban constructin are in economic parallel. Neither military production nor construction function within our human-level retail economy. Walmart does not carry B-52s any more than it carries 5 story apartment buildings. 

For us "humans," we are as disconnected from military industry as we are from the construction industry. Since most urban production jobs have been absorbed into social services and IT, only construction is left as the major urban industry. Low income families that do not get jobs in IT or construction or the military get displaced. Gone, searching for jobs in the central valley. 

For which economy, then, is "Sacramento" calling for the "care and feeding" of this housing glut? Only the corporate economy is there to benefit from it. When humans buy goods (commodities), they buy things to use (called "use values"). What corporations buy in the form of houses or military equipment are neither commodities nor use-values but things to be held as corporate assets. Their "use" is only to increase the price-value of corporate securities on securities markets. Securities price increases constitute the main form of corporate profit. The earnings from derivative trading are orders of magnitude higher than the profit from production. A real estate financial corporation buys up housing units to increase its asset value, whether those units are rented or not. The many new units sitting behind “Now Leasing” signs amount to capital gains as assets for real estate corporations (like BlackStone or Invitation Homes), regardless of whether they are rented or not. 

In other words, Congressional military budgeting is a government performance for the preservation and enhancement of the military corporate structure. California cities perform similarly with respect to the construction industry. 

In sum, securities speculation has replaced commodity profitability, construction (in both housing and infrastructure) has replaced urban commodity production (in investment and jobs), and military industries have replaced the heavy industry on which the productive economy depended. Within this multi-layered system of non-commodity production, "Sacramento” is doing its part by "mandating" that cities just do their part. 

And the Mayor says, "Okay." As a side note, Berkeley will be contributing to providing assets for the corporate economy by eliminating single family zones (R1 and R2), thus opening them for multiplex construction. And here too, the Build-Brigade has been hard at work, arguing that it was single family zoning that caused racially segregated neighborhoods, and not institutional racism that created segregated neighborhoods through redlining and racial covenants. But Berkeley’s on-going racial history is a different topic. 

The Political Machinery of “Hubris in Housing”  

What "Sacramento" is "mandating" is based on an untested assumption that a state bill (SB-35) can constitutionally do what it claims to do. This is the bill under which the state instructs cities to build housing in order to meet the state’s "need." Here’s how it works. 

The state’s housing department has a "thing" called RHNA [Regional Housing Needs Assessment], which it uses to define state “housing needs.” For Bay Area cities, RHNA deploys ABAG [Association of Bay Area Governments] as its instrument for estimating future Bay Area responsibilities. ABAG makes "allocations" to each city as their responsibility. And "Sacramento" then proclaims that to be a mandate (8934 units, in Berkeley’s case). 

It’s a game they play with numbers. Eight years ago, RHNA said there would be a 30% increase in Berkeley’s population by 2020, based on a computer projection. That didn’t happen. The affordability crisis that did happen, however, didn’t compute in RHNA’s program. As a non-factor, its absence from the discussion of "need" enabled the “Build-Brigade” to postulate a "housing" shortage. But in the absence of a calculation of affordability (rents not to exceed 30% of a tenant’s income), whose "needs" would the excess construction satisfy? the state’s? The construction industry? The developers? The corporations? Some of the rich people? Which? "Sacramento" doesn’t say. But it must in order to mandate. 

Where there is a real shortage, then, is in the power to mandate. ABAG does not have the statutory power to tell anyone what they must do. It can only propose and recommend (called "allocating"). "Sacramento" cannot mandate that a charter city obey within its purview of “urban affairs.” It can only override the autonomy provided by a city’s charter in terms of urgent “state affairs.” And they must meet certain requirements. The law that articulates such a "state affair" must be a “general law,” one which demonstrates an urgent state need, and which will be implemented and enforced uniformly throughout the state. It is that need for uniformity, beside the need for housing, that presents a problem for the state’s ability to mandate. 

SB-35 requires that each charter city modify its “Housing Element” (aka “housing plan”) to show it can accommodate ABAG’s allocation. If a city does not do so to the state’s satisfaction, "Sacramento" can take that city to civil court, and order "sanctions." 

We know about "sanctions." They are what the US imposes on other countries that insist on their sovereignty, like Cuba and Venezuela. That means that, in his call to arms, what the Mayor is really asking the people of Berkeley to do is support him so that "Sacramento" does not treat Berkeley the way the US treats Cuba. 

Is this for real? The “Build-Brigade” will say “yes, it is for real.” Both "Sacramento" and the Build-Brigade claim charter city autonomy can be overridden. Sanctions will only be to disguise the fact that there is no housing crisis, only an affordability crisis, which SB-35 will not resolve. 

The constitutionality problem  

What happens if the state takes a city to civil court and gets "sanctions"? According to SB-35, the sanctions the court would impose would be to empower the state to take control of the city’s permitting process, streamlining it in order to get housing construction under way (sort of like US sanctions on another country taking the form of control over the other’s international financing). These are the terms contained in the law. The state, as Plaintiff, would be able to get construction under way. It would be a seizure of a city’s permitting process, authorized by the law itself. And SB-35 was originally enacted to stop charter cities from refusing to allow affordable housing development. 

Would such a seizure of city function be constitutional in California? The constitutionality of SB-35 has been tested three times in California courts, and affirmed each time. But in each case, the arguments focused on the urgency and priority of the state’s housing "needs." They did not address the issue of enforcement uniformity. The power to sanction in the specific way delineated in the law has not yet been tested. 

And it presents a significant legal problem. Each city has a different zoning code. The state, having taken control of the permitting process, would still be bound by the specifics of the city’s zoning code. Its seizure of the permitting process would be contingent on each city’s specific zoning structure. Implementation of actual court sanctions would thus be specific to each city. And that specificity is unavoidable because its terms are internal to the law, as part of its provisions for enforcement. In other words, enforcement would be anything but uniform. The law has non-uniformity of enforcement built into it. Without uniformity, the law is ineligible to override city autonomy. 

If enforcement were at the hands of a different law, and operated from a separate jurisdiction, then this non-uniformity would not be an issue. But it isn’t. 

Indeed, what the state will obtain, through court sanctions in the law’s terms, will actually be the ability to operate gratuitously and even arbitrarily (by ministerial discretion). 

And, of course, the act of seizing the city’s zoning process will not produce affordable housing. Berkeley’s zoning law, for instance, only requires developers to include 20% affordable unit. Whoever may control the city’s permitting process, they will both by shackled by the same structure, and be prey for the for-profit developers. Under SB-35, the responsibility to the people that it promises will be a pipedream. 

And the Mayor falls for it. The truth is that California cities are being sold to real estate financial corporations as assets. 

A comedic end note  

The Mayor extols the Planning Department for revising the zoning code, transforming it from chaos to readability. No prior attempt to do so had occurred because a chaotic legal system is perfect for slowing people down, discouraging individual projects and small investors. But now, in the context of large streamlined construction projects, clarity of code is desirable. Buried in the depths of the revised version, however, is a plethora of discretionary decisions available to the city, and therefore to developers, most of which fail to specify who, or under what authority, the discretionary decisions is to be made. 

The dice are loaded in the revision with pro-corporate bias. 

Thank you, Mayor Jesse Arreguin. Nothing makes the case that the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group and many others propose for respecting our parks, our history, our landmarks so well as learning that the mayor who promised on his way into office that "of course he would protect People’s Park"reverse course so thoroughly that he now supports obstructing the mural on Haste Street depicting History of People’s Park with a public toilet.

It is the most perfect parallel to the University of California’s insistence that despite being California’s largest land owner and having a bucketload of alternative sites, it is somehow obligated to destroy a public park and the sightlines to over a dozen of our town’s most revered architectural jewels.

Here’s to public toilets. May a thousand public toilets bloom. But it would be difficult to find a more ridiculous place to situate a public toilet than directly in front of a mural which then could only be seen in pieces, if at all.

Those of us who successfully fought to protect the George Washington High School’s famous New Deal era Arnautoff mural can only imagine that Jesse craves the international ridicule garnered by the San Francisco school board that tried so hard to destroy that mural while ignoring the pandemic crisis for teachers and students. Our mayor may get Reaganesque political rewards for this bonehead move, but those of us who know him will all see this commode caper as a defining moment.

Thank you, Jesse, for clarifying even more succinctly than the plans to destroy an internationally renowned symbol of peace, cultural transformation, free speech, user development, and the end to all wars that the University of California’s true agenda is to re-write history in its own favor and make sure that People’s Park is just something in a book or on a plaque. Among other comic atrocities which characterize your time as mayor, the toilet caper will go down as…number one- and number two.

I’ve been thinking about my cohort and me: old American white guys. We have had all the breaks. Being born male gave us a leg up on the rest of the world’s population. Being born white gave us a further boost. And being born in America was the final step in making us the chosen few. All of this was simply a matter of good fortune. We didn’t actually do anything to get such an enormous advantage over everyone else. 

As Evan Osnos points out in a Profile of Joe Biden in The New Yorker some time back,  

“Because of the Depression and the war, the generation was exceptionally small —the first in American history to be smaller than the one before it. Its members enjoyed more attention, and resources from their parents, smaller class sizes, and high rates of college admission.” 

It is true; we were all expected to go to college, and we did. Few of the previous generation spent so many years in school. Some — like my father — didn’t make it into high school at all. And it was easy for us to get into colleges and universities. Any of us American white guys who wanted to go got in, and the cost of a higher education was unbelievably low by contemporary standards.  

When school was over we went out and got jobs. There were plenty of them out there, and they paid well. We all expected to make more money than our fathers. And we did. Instead of wearing denim and khaki and carrying a lunch pail we wore jackets and neckties and ate lunch out. We made up a big part of the growing middle class. We had all the breaks. 

It was all so easy. You simply get born male, white, American in the period between the Depression and World War II and the world was your oyster.  

It still is. The generations that have followed us have not had it so good. Adult children live with their parents and are kept on the parents health insurance not because they are lazy, but because they can’t find work. So ours has been the golden generation, lucky beyond our dreams. We are still in control of things. The two most recent presidential candidates are the two oldest white guys to ever run for the office.  

* * * 

Such observations beg the question, why are we such a nasty lot? Why are we so fearful? We buy more guns than we will ever use. Why are we so angry? Why do we rage against a government that protects us and advances our interests? Why are we so rude and unforgiving? Why do we undercut the DACA Dreamers, whose only wish is to work for and earn the status that we have assumed all along, unearned? Why are the wealthiest among us the most uncharitable? The enormous wealth disparity in this country happened on our watch. Why did most of us vote for Donald Trump last year?  

With all of our advantages we could have looked out for those less fortunate than us. We could have worked at making the world a better place. We could have used our education to look at long term goals. We could have cared. 

Why haven’t we? 

I don’t get it. 

Editor's Note: The latest issue of the Pepper Spray Times is now available.

You can view it absolutely free of charge by clicking here . You can print it out to give to your friends.

Grace Underpressure has been producing it for many years now, even before the Berkeley Daily Planet started distributing it, most of the time without being paid, and now we'd like you to show your appreciation by using the button below to send her money.

This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! 

A psychiatric condition by itself doesn't necessarily make a person "disabled." Millions of Americans suffer from depression or other conditions, and often they do not wish to see a doctor for it. Usually, they can work, interact, and function in society despite their condition. For some, the mental condition contrarily makes them do better. Depression can cause a person to try harder. Eventually the person is taking refuge within effort. This creates a workaholic who often does better in life than someone who is more balanced. The depressed, driven person may feel miserable, but they may end up with more achievements. 

In my case, I'm hindered by the condition and by the medication that I have no choice about taking, which treats the condition. If there were any way I could possibly get by without medication, I would do so. Medication for a psychotic disorder allows function with a semblance of normal. Yet it restricts brainpower. The only reason I can write fairly well is that I have repetitively etched that neural pattern into my brain. If you put numerous hours into something over a period of decades, you'll get good at it regardless of taking brain restricting medication. 

If you were missing a leg and played badminton every day for three hours, and if you did this for ten years, you'd be the champion badminton player even though you might have to get around the court on one leg or possibly with a prosthesis. Effort and practice almost never fail. 

On medication, there are a lot of things that are out of reach. I'd say that I and millions of others with a psychotic illness are hindered by medication as much as we are hindered by symptoms of a mental illness. Medication if it were given to a normal person would make them disabled. A person who needs medication is helped by many of its characteristics, while other effects of the medication create additional impairment. Thus, a medicated mentally ill person gets a double whammy. Not only do we have to deal with symptoms, we also must deal with how the medication limits the entire brain and central nervous system. 

Medication can make it painful to concentrate. Brief periods of concentration with frequent breaks are less uncomfortable. However, on antipsychotics, sustained concentration can become very painful and, in some instances, can't be done. Academic or technical material, or heavy literary material, are hard to read, much less write, even for the ordinary unimpaired person. For someone who takes antipsychotics, the level of study expected by college may not be possible. (But if you respect yourself, you won't be stopped by me saying this, or by anyone saying you can't do something.) 

If a person on antipsychotics is on a fairly low dosage and can put forth ample amounts of effort, if their intelligence is naturally high despite the disability--and if they are young, they could achieve most of the same things as an unimpaired person. The impairment of medication is not absolute, and neither is the impairment of the illness. Readers with a disability should not be discouraged from trying. 

Part 2 

I'm in my fifties and I've lost a lot of the capabilities I've had when younger, due to the cumulative effects of being medicated and other environmental factors. When you get older and you are a "geriatric psychiatry client" like me, your options and your abilities have become less, due to burnout and/or atrophy. 

If you feel that your brain can't do very much, you could still try to do creative, clever things that are not so brain intensive. Not all human pursuit involves massive amounts of brainpower and/or massive athletic ability. You could practice at something that could at first be considered useless. But then you could figure out ways to turn it into money. 

Colonel Sanders invented his fried chicken with eleven herbs and spices--and became a multimillionaire in his old age. Rodney Dangerfield got his first big break as a comedian at age forty-three. Neither person was necessarily a brainiac. They were both clever. 

(Tangentially: to make it big with your unique idea or your unique invention, you need to have the know how to move in fast and maneuver rapidly to a position of dominance. Facebook is a nice idea. But having the idea and becoming a multibillionaire from it are two different things.) 

If you did sculptures or paintings, it might be that with no significant training, you could make something that people will admire. 

Older mentally ill people need a lot of peace and quiet, and we are not able to survive rough conditions. We need a place to call our own, a home, or an apartment. If we have that, and if we have time on our hands, we can create something. 

If we do not have a space to call our own, and if we do not have any assets or any resources, there isn't much we can do until we create that. A bed in a shared bedroom, meals provided, medication handed to you, supervision given, and your money handled by someone else, comprise extreme levels of restriction. It is better than being on the street and trying to survive the elements. That's all I can say for it. If I were in that position, I'd get computer access at the library and do some work from there. A shared computer, however, has a number of problems that you must overcome. But there are some things that you could do. 

As you can tell by reading this, I am still at the stage of trying to make something happen. When it does, I'll let you know. 

Do you continually say to yourself or to others something that amounts to "Help, poor me"? It doesn't matter. Because if you look deeper than that, you might be able to find an area of consciousness which looks at that as though you are watching yourself as an actor or actress in a movie, and you are blissfully enjoying the show, and barely, if at all, involved in the plight of the actors, including the protagonist, you. 

The above is every bit as accurate for a mentally ill person as it is for a person in the mainstream population, someone who could practice mindfulness if they thought it might help them, not knowing how much it would help them. 

When I was a youngster, I would marvel at the adventures of Captain Kirk, space traveler, a man who would go to various planets and beat up extraterrestrials or make out with female extraterrestrials. I started watching the show when I was maybe seven years old, and the show may not have even been into reruns. At five or six, I watched the first moon landing on our black and white television equipped with its vacuum tubes that would make the primitive thing work most of the time. 

Something powerful got the character, Kirk, through all of these hard challenges he continually faced every weeknight at five o'clock. Was it bravery? Bravery will only do so much. It can help you to overcome your fears, but will it sustain you? No, it won't. You must be happy while you are amid your harsh times, and that is the only thing that works. 

Uncertainty is intrinsic in life. No one can predict the future. Nostradamus could not predict the future, albeit he made some forecasts that were quite amazing. Mental illness is painful and frightening to go through. What might sustain us through an acute episode is the hope that things will be better, as soon as they are back to normal. Psychiatric medication can dull the mind and can prevent you from being aware of much. 

Yet we have another level. When this level is connected to the point where it reaches the conscious mind, you could feel a continuous undercurrent of bliss. You always had this, but up until now, you might not have been conscious of it. But it kept you going. 

Almost every week for the past 11-plus years, I've reported faithfully on the horrors of being mentally ill. I've done this from a space of enthusiasm. How did I do this? How do Black leaders report faithfully on the many hardships and injustices that nonwhite people endure? 

Gautama Buddha said that suffering is intrinsic to life. Yet, I must add that joy is intrinsic to life. 

You do not need to become Buddhist to practice mindfulness. You do not need to abandon your Christianity, Judaism, Islamic Faith, or any other practices of worship that you need to do. You do not need to abandon your agnosticism or your atheism. Mindfulness works. It forges a connection between the deep-seated joy of living, to your conscious mind. You become aware that you are happy. 

I am not a Republican and have never voted for a Republican, but I acknowledge that Colin Powell was an exemplary public servant and an honorable person. Unfortunately, the news of his death invariably mentions his February 5, 2003 speech to the United Nations, but rarely mentions the backstory to his speech that Powell saw as a “blot" on his record. 

Let’s briefly look at the events leading up to this speech. In 2002, instead of invading Iraq, Powell advised Bush to take this case to the UN to try to resolve the issue of their alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD) diplomatically. The U.S. took the matter to the UN but Saddam Hussein failed to provide persuasive evidence that he did not have WMD. Congress then overwhelmingly passed the war powers resolution authorizing the use of military force in Iraq.  

In January 2003, Bush told Powell that he had decided to invade Iraq and persuaded him to try to get UN authorization for the invasion. The basis for this February 2003 UN speech was a national intelligence estimate that had been given to the Congress months earlier. 

The UN did not authorize the war but Bush invaded Iraq anyway. Bush called it a preemptive war. No WMD were ever found in Iraq. 

On September 16, 2004, Secretary-General of the UN Kofi Annan, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal.” 

Powell’s speech did rally U.S. public support for the war, but undermined its credibility with the UN. 

In September 2004, Powell admitted before Congress that his intelligence sources during the presentation were inaccurate, stating officials knew the information was false but had never told him. Powell did the honorable act by resigning. To my knowledge, no other Bush administration official involved in the decision to invade Iraq resigned.  

Did Powell really knowingly lie in his UN speech or was it an intelligence failure Given Powell’s strength of character, I believe the latter. 

l If you're confused by the state of the US economy, you're not alone. Market watchers know that stocks are sending confusing signals. Some "experts" say we are in a recovery, other predict big problems. In August, consumer sentiment (https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/consumer-confidence ) hit a decade low. The unemployment rate is falling but tens of thousands of workers are leaving the labor market. What's happening?

Duh: we're in the middle of a civil war.

Thankfully, so far it's a non-shooting civil war. Nonetheless, it's a civil war marked by two vectors: one is the millions of folks who insist that the orange menace won the 2020 presidential election; they're more interested in creating chaos than a better world. The second is the millions of Americans who refuse to get vaccinated: They are leaving and aggravating the labor market. (By the way, these populations overlap.) 

The Unemployment Rate: The latest jobs report ()https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf ) indicated that the US economy added 194,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent. That seems like good news, but it must be tempered by the understanding that 183,000 workers dropped out of the labor force (mostly women). The "job participation rate" increased to 61.6 percent and remains below the 63 percent norm -- pre-pandemic. 

What's happening? For one thing, the latest jobs report indicates that there's no truth to the Republican claim that workers were staying out of the job market in order to get unemployment insurance benefits; many are reentering but looking for better jobs. The churn in the labor market can be understood by studying the relationship between unemployment and vaccination rates. For example, California the state with the highest vaccination rate is also one of the states least impacted by the labor shortage. (Conversely, South Dakota one of the states with lowest vaccination rate is also one of the states most impacted by the labor shortage.) Where it's safe, workers are returning to the labor market, but they are being picky. Where it's not safe, workers are quitting their jobs. 

Unfilled Jobs: There remains a big gap between the number of job openings and those who are looking for work -- a deficit of several million. Many employers -- particularly small businesses -- are desperately looking for employees. There are several explanations for the lower than expected "job participation rate." The most obvious is that "caregivers," mostly women, are staying at home taking care of vulnerable family members: children or the elderly. Their justification is that they don't feel safe letting others care for their family members or, in some cases, there's no safe hospital or nursing home option. (More than 300,000 women over 20 dropped out of the labor force in September.) 

The second explanation is that some unemployed workers came from sectors that are on the "front lines" dealing with the pandemic: leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, retail trade, and public education. Many of these workers left jobs where there was a high probability of exposure to the coronavirus -- such as bus drivers -- or they were put in the unpleasant position of having to enforce a mask mandate -- such as restaurant employees. They don't want to return to that hassle. (Consider this Buzzfeed article where restaurant workers report the abuse they've recently had to endure https://www.buzzfeed.com/rossyoder/why-people-left-restaurant-industry or this similar Axios article https://www.axios.com/bars-restaurants-angry-violent-customers-pandemic-515777d8-8550-4cee-9193-c55eda96d2f1.html? ) 

The third explanation is that many American workers now feel empowered to quit their jobs. The August labor report ( https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jolts.pdf) indicated that a record number, 4.3 million, quit in August. ("Quits increased in accommodation and food services (+157,000); wholesale trade (+26,000); and state and local government education (+25,000)..") 

Writing in The Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/09/30/during-great-resignation-workers-refuse-accept-unacceptable/ ) Karla Miller observed there are four main causes for "the great resignation:" "A backlog of workers who wanted to resign before the pandemic but held on a bit longer; burnout, particularly among frontline workers in health care, food service and retail; “pandemic epiphanies” in which people experienced major shifts in identity and purpose that led them to pursue new careers and start their own businesses; and an aversion to returning to offices after a year or more of working remotely." 

Worker Power: UC Economist Robert Reich postulates that we're experiencing a form of national strike (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/13/american-workers-general-strike-robert-reich ). "American workers now have bargaining leverage to do better. After a year and a half of the pandemic, consumers have pent-up demand for all sorts of goods and services...But employers are finding it hard to fill positions... Over the past year, job openings have increased 62%. Yet overall hiring has actually declined... My take: workers are reluctant to return to or remain in their old jobs mostly because they’re burned out... What’s really going on is more accurately described as a living-wage shortage, a hazard pay shortage, a childcare shortage, a paid sick leave shortage, and a healthcare shortage." [Emphasis added] 

Summary: We're living in interesting times. We're in the middle of a (low key) civil war and similarly subdued national employment strike. And then there's climate change. Stay tuned.