The San Francisco Mime Troupe is planning on returning to performing in the parks this summer! Unfortunately there is a strong likelihood we will not be able to perform in Berkeley, as that city has raised its park fees by several thousand dollars. We are trying to find a sympathetic City Council-member to get the fees waived or reduced, or find a Berkekeyite with the dough to subsidize our performances, but right now it looks like for the first time in several decades Berkeley may not be on our schedule.

I’ve been tuning in regularly to the Covid Grand Rounds from the University of California San Francisco Department of Medicine – a public program aired every couple of weeks on YouTube. I’ve come to trust the moderator and the guests—experts all, from different corners of the medical world.

Thus, when this week’s guest--a leading researcher in molecular medicine had sharp words for the Biden administration’s failure to collect critical data on Covid cases, I paid attention.

Appearing in a January 13 presentation, Eric Topol, editor-in-chief of Medscape and holder of an endowed chair at Scripps Research, said, “We have pathetic data systems...For example, right now we want to know if these Omicron boosters-- how well they’re working to prevent hospitalization and deaths. And when do they wane? Those people who are getting hospitalized who had a third shot—what’s going on there?

“We were promised by the CDC in May that they would track every breakthrough hospitalization and death. Never happened. And so we don’t have critical data. We have 150,000 plus people in the hospital, and I have BEGGED at the HHS level that we have granular data on each of those people—their vaccination status, which vaccine, when they got it, their age, their co-existing conditions, and all the basal stuff, and they say, ‘We’re going to look into it.’ Even though it can be mandated by HHS authority. 

“So we have just a dreadful situation here where we don’t have real-time captured data. The only data that gets posted on the CDC is a month old and it’s de minimis about things like hospitalizations or deaths. And this is unacceptable. If you’re going to go in a pandemic and try to deliver guidance, you have to have data. That’s how you develop trust.” 

Not only does the U.S. not have a reliable system for collecting this data but, he said “there’s no seeming will to get one. And that is distressing, and has to change.” 

He prefaced his remarks by saying “we of course support the current administration and the mantra of sticking to the science, but later said, “we have a secretary of HHS [Health and Human Services] -- he hasn’t shown up for the pandemic... 

“We have a serious problem. There’s been a lot of infighting between the agencies. And the HHS secretary should be bringing that together. So we have a serious problem. We have a no-show HHS secretary. We have an HHS that could mandate this data capture but they’re afraid, in my view, of political backlash, that’s why they’re not doing it... 

“So we have to rely on other countries and fortunately we have amazing data that comes out of places like the UK and Israel, Denmark, South Africa, that has been terrific for us, but we have a different population here, we’re much less vaccinated, much less boosted, we have lots of coexisting conditions that are not as prevalent in these other countries, yet we don’t have data. 

“I don’t think that the administration has delivered on sticking to the science, because part of the science is having the data.” 

Topol was appearing on UCSF’s Covid-19 Grand Rounds, usually held biweekly and presented live and recorded on Youtube. For the January 13 session, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCAvFHd3B38. The section in which he makes these remarks begins at about 48 minutes into the program. For information on future sessions, see https://medicine.ucsf.edu/dom_grand_rounds . 

What a week! There is so much to write about I will have trouble keeping this down to a readable length. And, I can’t even cover all of the hot meetings as there were too many running at the same time. The recordings aren’t up yet on the Thursday Council TOPA meeting and then there are the meetings where the record button is never touched. Plus, you will have to read my response to the mayor who wasn’t too happy with what I wrote about him last week. 

The week of meetings started Monday with the Community for a Cultural Civic Center and the report on the water intrusion study. The cost of repairs for water leaks and water damage at the Maudelle Shirek and Veterans Buildings is in. 

Maudelle Shirek (Old City Hall) is $1,480,947, and the Veterans Building is 1,918,262--a total of $3,399,210. This is just for a new roof and repairing leaks throughout the buildings. There may be additional costs like the Civic Arts fee, and we will have to ask about the cost of windows, since dry rot in the windows and frames is extensive. This will likely fall into a balance between being true to historical design or to switching to double pane. Maintenance is not included. The cost estimate for the seismic stabilization for both buildings is still in process, and that is just to bring the level to “Damage Control”, where everyone gets out safely and the building is repairable. https://berkeleycccc.org/what-were-about 

There are still rumblings from people who claim that housing can be built on top of the Veterans’ Building. Swords to Plowshares already rejected such a proposal some time ago, since to take on such a task would require building a “bridge” over the building on which to put the housing, a very expensive proposition. If housing at the Veterans Building is or becomes the priority, that is a very different plan (I am not in that subcommittee). In that situation, my take from the seismic discussions is that we would be looking at something similar to the complex at the northeast corner of Shattuck and University where the buildings were gutted to a shell. 

The Turtle Island Monument, which turns the Civic Center Park fountain into a garden, has been turned over to PGA Architects https://www.pgaarchitects.co.za/ for final design. 

Last Tuesday evening’s City Council meeting dragged on until 12:50 am. The Surveillance Technology Report was moved to March 22, 2022. The evening wasn’t helped by adding the lengthy presentation of the 2021 COVID-19 Response Report to the agenda. 

City Manager Dee Williams-Ridley gave a heaping dose of praise to City staff for their response to COVID-19. When the presentation ended and public comment began, City employees described their dissatisfaction with how they are not notified when exposed to COVID at work, how the ventilation at 1947 Center Street is still a problem (first noted by city employees at council in 2020), how there is no partnership with labor, how City employees are required to be on site when they could perform their work more safely off site, and their comments closed with a request to “judge us on our activity not our presence.” This was quickly followed with the clean-up put in the hands of the Director of Human Resources La Tanya Bellows. The entire show from start to finish was 98 minutes. 

Next came the Street Maintenance and Rehabilitation Policy and Five-Year Paving Plan. The vote fell unanimously on the “equity” plan which has a stronger focus on residential than arterials. Looking at the diagrams from the agenda, it still doesn’t look like much will get fixed. 

The evening finished with unbelievable drama. Councilmembers Wengraf and Hahn partnered in presenting an amendment to the Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Ordinance to address public safety in high severity fire zones. The amendment limits the size, setbacks and number of ADUs that could be added to a lot in the City of Berkeley high fire risk zones. Included is prohibition of rooftop decks and of intrusion into a four-foot setback. Discussion and voting required multiple extensions to the regular closing time. 

Wengraf started with listing fires in the hills. The fires of 1923 and 1991 aren’t the only fires in the Berkeley Hills though. You can read about them here: https://alumni.berkeley.edu/california-magazine/spring-2019/september-17-1923-day-berkeley-burned There were also fires in the 1970s (37 homes) and the 1980s (38 homes). 

There is a clause in the SB 9 legislation signed by the Governor in 2021 that eliminates single-family residential zones statewide and provides for increasing density without discretionary review or hearings, with few exceptions. The exception most concerning here allows for limiting housing development if “…the housing development project would have a specific, adverse impact…upon public health and safety…” https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB9&showamends=true 

Hahn gave the best, most thorough, understandable presentation that I’ve seen since she was elected to council. Wengraf showed a 2-minute recording from the 1991 Berkeley Hills fire of people stuck in a traffic jam abandoning their cars to escape on foot with the fire billowing behind them. Twenty-five people didn’t make it out and died in that fire. 

After all the presentations, public testimony, council discussion, and after 12:30 am Councilmember Kesarwani made a substitute motion, seconded by Droste, to throw out the proposed Wengraf/Hahn public safety amendment to the ADU ordinance for high risk fire zones and to use the same ADU ordinance that was passed for the city flats at the previous council meeting. The discussion was chaotic, but the motion initially passed with Kesarwani, Taplin, Bartlett, Robinson and Droste voting for it and Harrison, Hahn Wengraf and Arreguin voting against. After the total was announced, with the clock ticking off the last seconds of the meeting, Bartlett said he thought he had voted the wrong way and requested a vote to reconsider. 

Kesarwani, Harrison and Droste had left when another vote was taken to extend the meeting once more, to 12:50 am. The vote to reconsider passed, and the vote on the Kesarwani/Droste substitute motion was retaken, with Kesarwani, Taplin, Robinson and Droste voting yes and Bartlett, Harrison, Hahn, Wengraf and Arreguin voting no. The main motion (Hahn/Harrison with the Wengraf and Hahn public safety amendments) prevailed at about 12:49 am with Kesarwani, Taplin, Robinson and Droste ultimately acquiescing and joining with the majority to record it as unanimous. 

Thursday, the evening of meetings dueling for attention, I attended the Independent Redistricting Commission meeting. It was another late night that didn’t end until 11:20 pm. The commissioners listened intently and responded to public comment. The Amber draft map was the overwhelming favorite. The Blue, Orange and Maroon maps were eliminated. The united waterfront as one district was dropped. 

There will be 2 -3 new draft maps available to the public and committee for scrutiny on February 10th. The next meeting is February 17. An extra meeting is scheduled for Saturday, February 19. The time was not determined, but is likely to be 10 am. 

The Amber map is to remain the same with corrections as requested by the public/South Berkeley to the boundary between District 3 and District 8 to unify the Ashby BART station site to include the Ed Roberts campus in District 3. The corrected Amber map would also realign the District 3 boundary to include more of South Berkeley, so that the NAACP and St. Paul A.M.E. Church would be in District 3. The new border is likely to be Shattuck. 

Using the Amber map as the bas, a second new map and possibly a third map will be created with two student districts and including the corrections to District 3 as above. 

The commission vote on the final map will be February 28. 

I received an email from Mayor Arreguin. He wasn’t too happy with what I wrote about him in my January 22 Activist’s Diary. You will get the details so keep reading. Just in case you never read my Activist’s Calendar to the end, I always include scheduled worksessions and unscheduled workshops and presentations. 

For those who haven’t heard of TOPA (Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act), the subject of these emails, it is this: When a building is going up for sale, TOPA gives the tenants living in it notice and the first right to purchase the building. There are more details and conditions than this broad summary. 

After the TOPA meeting recording is posted I will watch it and report on it in next week’s Activist’s Diary. There has been a strong pushback from property owners and developers and I would expect they showed up Thursday as they have in the past. 

Here is his email, plus verfication from Sarah Scruggs. My response follows the emails. 

[from]Jesse Arreguin: Kelly, I want to respond to this statement in your recent "A Berkeley Activist's Diary": 

All of this brings us to the next question: Why did Mayor Arreguin decide to schedule a special meeting, the council work session on TOPA (Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act), at the very same time as the Independent Redistricting Commission meeting? This looks very much like a deliberate act to dilute the response to TOPA by splitting concerned citizens between TOPA and redistricting. There wasn’t even a whiff of a special meeting on TOPA at the last Agenda and Rules Committee meeting, where dates of work sessions were reviewed. All of this leaves a very unpleasant taste. 

Contrary to what people may think, there is no grand conspiracy to undermine TOPA on my part. Trust me I want people to be at both meetings.  

I did announce at a prior Agenda and Rules Committee meeting that we would be calling a special meeting on January 27th to hold a work session on TOPA. You may not have heard me say it and I am sorry it was not clear.  

Additionally the TOPA Working Group has been doing outreach for weeks on this date. This date was arrived at in consultation with the TOPA Working Group. I did alert the City Manager and City Clerk of this date and was not informed of any potential conflicts when we originally calendared this date. It is also unfortunate that City staff scheduled multiple important meetings on the same date.  

We settled on this date in December and it has been promoted by email, social media and through flyering. I have cced Sarah Scruggs from NCLT and the TOPA Working Group to confirm this. 

Mayor Jesse Arreguin 

************************************************************ 

From:Sarah Scruggs, Northern California Land Trust 

Hi Kelly, The Mayor is correct. Since December, the TOPA Working Group has been sending updates via email about the January 27 TOPA work session to organizations that have endorsed TOPA, as well as individuals that have sent emails in support of TOPA during our past email actions. Apologies that you did not receive the information and happy to add you to the email list. Attached are the flyers that have been passed out around town. 

Response 

My source of information is city meetings and city records so whatever discussions and negotiations were going on inside or outside of city hall there wasn’t any notice to the public of the January 27 worksession on TOPA until it appeared in the Agenda and Rules packet published on the Committee homepage sometime on Thursday, January 20, 2021. The content of the special January 27 meeting was also listed on the City Council Agenda Index webpage with a document dated January 20, 2022. I picked up the notices on Friday January 21 when I went through city meetings to prepare the Activist’s Calendar for the week of January 23 – January 30, 2022 and commented in my Activist’s Diary January 22, 2022 edition. 

The City Council 2022 Meeting Schedules adopted on January 18, 2022 lists worksessions on January 20, February 15, March 15, April 19, June 21, and July 19. There is no listing of a January 27, 2022 worksession, a meeting date that Mayor Arreguin states in his email was settled in December. He blames others for scheduling meetings in the same evening of January 27. 

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

Arreguin states he announced the TOPA worksession at a prior Agenda and Rules Committee meeting. Even though I attended the January 4, 2022, January 10, 2022 and January 24, 2022 Agenda and Rules Committee, I listened to the recordings for an announcement of the January 27, 2022 worksession on TOPA. There was no mention at either the January 4 or January 10 meeting. There was only a reference to the published worksession calendar in the packet on January 24, 2022 with no verbal mention of TOPA. There is not documentation of either a scheduled or planned to be scheduled worksession on TOPA in any Agenda and Rules Committee agendas prior to the January 20^th packet. There is also nothing in the minutes of the Agenda meetings of either a scheduled or planned to be scheduled worksession on TOPA going back to May 10, 2021. 

I also looked through the emails from Mayor@CityofBerkeley.info The emails used to send us announcements, alerts, information. The January 26, 2022 email includes, COVID booster requirements, Redistricting, Omicron, New Hotel, Tonga Tsunami, Public Input on Recruiting the Director for the Police Accountability Board. There is nothing on TOPA. The January 15 email includes only a call for input on the Paving Plan. The January 12 email is the announcement of the MLK Jr Breakfast, The January 6 and 8 emails are on COVID and protection from Omicron. 

The December 23, 2021 email from the Mayor is a recap of all the successes of the year with much on housing, but there is no mention of TOPA finally making it out of the Land Use, Housing and Economic Development Committee on May 20, 2021 with a positive qualified recommendation. 

At the May 20, 2021 Land Use Committee, the motion began with “Recommendation to: 1. Send the item to the full Council incorporating the Mayor’s May 20, 2021 amendments…” 

Many of us have been wondering what happened to TOPA. This has been a long haul for tenants seeking passage of TOPA and it isn’t over. TOPA first appeared in the Agenda and Rules packet on February 24, 2020 and from there it was referred to the Land Use Committee. 

I would hope that no one is bullied into being paraded out to take the fall, because in this case as chair of the Agenda and Rules Committee, Mayor Arreguin had plenty of opportunity prior to January 20, 2022 to correct any omission of a planned meeting on TOPA for January 27. Arreguin also had months to add TOPA to the list of worksessions/workshops to be scheduled. The mayor also had the months between the end of May and December and certainly from September 2021 on to schedule a worksession on TOPA or bring it directly to council for a vote. 

Arreguin has been mayor and chaired the Agenda Committee since 2016. He was a councilmember before that. Arreguin is the author of TOPA. He knows how the City system works. He should also know by now that I pay attention and he will know now that I do my homework and far too often I don’t clean up my emails. 

If all this gets to better city meeting planning and posting of future meetings than this has made my day a better one. There is much work still to be done. 

In closing my latest reading, The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang who lives right here in Berkeley. I love books that challenge my thinking and give a different perspective. Most of my reading on race and racism up to this point has focused on African Americans and the genocide of the indigenous People in America. Caspian writes about who and what is “White” : his search for self identity as the son of Korean immigrants and as an Asian man in America and father of a bi-racial daughter. Caspian challenges the lumping of Asians together as one group when there are so many different cultures and perspectives. I thought a lot about another challenge to “lumping” of cultures together, the time when I saw the first iteration of Culture Clash in AmeriCA. I can’t remember the year, but google has it as 2002.

Karmic Strips

Darrin Bell made a good point in a recent edition of his Candorville strip when one of his characters cited the recent case of a couple of Los Angeles cops "who didn't respond to a robbery 'cause they was playin' Pokemon." As a result, they were "fired on the spot."

Bell's cartoon alter-ego, journalist Lemont Brown, replies aghast: "You mean they didn't put them on paid leave? They didn't have to 'investigatei it for months? And nobody in America called those cops 'heroes'?"

"Well," Lemont's sidekick replies, "Ain't as if they beat or shot a non-violent Black man. They did something that ALL Americans could agree was wrong."

And on January 29, Lemont revealed his nerdish leanings when a friend asked what "caused the Big Bang" and Lemont explains: "Some speculate that the inflation field phase-transitioned toward a vacuum state, where it then propagated outward from the nucleation point."

Turns out his friend was simply asking whether a loud noise he'd just heard was "a gunshot or a car back-firing."

In the course of the same week, the strip also dealt withSection 3 of the Constitution's 14^th Amendment and assessed how comics in the 1920s dealt with the Spanish Flu, 

Karmic Strips II 

Two recent Sunday comic strips, The Wizard of Id and Pearls before Swine, made my day. 

In Id, the kingdom's mini-monarch delivers a speech and unwittingly outs the corporations behind his policies on climate change ("ExxonMobil"), the War on Terror ("Lockheed, Boeing"), high-priced drugs ("Cigna, Bristol Myers Squibb") and poisonous Big Ag chemicals ("Monsanto"). In the last panel, a panicked aide yells: "Who left all the sponsors' names on the teleprompter?!!" 

And in Pearls, an enlightened donkey (known as the "Wise Ass on the Hill") criticizes the country's growing wealth gap and reveals the unspeakable truth that some of the world's richest people control powerful media tools that they use to intentionally sow social division to prevent Red and Blue America from focusing on their common enemy — the very rich. 

In the strip, the Wise Ass reveals that there are 664 billionaires in the US who have "more money than the bottom 165,000,000 Americans combined." When asked why more people don't know about this, the Wise Ass replies: "Because the rich own the media. And if you say anything, they'll crush you and replace …" At which point, the Wise Ass is silences as the Pearls strip is visibly demolished before our very eyes. To get the full effect, check out the actual strip online at this link. 

Chronicle Headlines 

A brief salute to some of the Chronicle's recent pun-laden headlines. 

January 15 headline on potential hikes in the cost of pork:
Fears of 'Bacon Crisis' aren’t panning out yet. 

January 17 report on climate-change impacts on the local beer industry:
Barley shortage has brewers over a barrel. 

January 24 story on restoring a local watershed:
Muir Woods creek flows with change. 

January 24 headline on local eateries:
Pandemic feeds profit for restaurant chains. 

January 25 back-to-back sports headline:
Warrior's backbone Looney doing work on the backboard. 

January 26 update on monthly "practice blasts" of emergency siren:
Fixing noon siren: This is a test for S.F. 

Weathering the News  

Personal opinion: Too much precious TV airtime is devoted to weather reporting, Reality: animated weather forecast maps are compelling to watch but they aren't reality. While a seven-day forecast is right about 80% of the time, a 10-day forecast is only right about 50% of the time. 

If you want to know what the weather is like in real time, just look out a window. You don't need to watch a weather reporter standing in knee-high water to know that a serious rainstorm is in progress. 

One good thing about TV weather reporting: some of the reporting assignments couldn't be more appropriate. The ABC News reporter covering tornadoes in Nashville was none other than Danielle Breezy and NBC's Nightly News weekend anchor covering east-coast blizzards was none other than… Kate Snow. 

Trump Unplugged at Arizona Rally 

Security was tight at Donald Trump's recent ego-rally in Arizona. Some newscasts reported on a list containing a number of items that were banned from the event. One of the items on the list was: "electric toasters." Good planning. You wouldn't want some Antifa provocateur throwing a toaster at Mr. Twice-Impeached. Fun fact: Not on the banned list: guns. 

Whites on Trump's Vax Blacklist? 

During his Arizona feisty-fest, Trump told his adoring troops that Democrats are “denigrating white people” by using Covid treatments to “determine who lives and who dies … it’s unbelievable to think this.” According to Trump, a Biden-Fauci Conspiracy was assuring that white people were “being sent to the back of the line.” 

This prompted late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel to observe: “Where does he even get this stuff? This is a man who hasn’t waited in a line since like hot lunch in the fourth grade. White people are being sent to the back of the line? I guess Martin Luther King’s dream has been realized.” 

Kimmel got that last part wrong. MLK's dream was "equality" not Black entitlement. But this raises what would seem to be another culture clash. 

Looking at Trump's on-stage entourage, you can't miss the half-dozen African-American faces prominently placed behind the podium wearing "Blacks for Trump" shirts. And then you had to wonder how these presumed Black Anti-vaxxers processed Trump's revelation that, under the Democrats, White people awaiting Covid jabs were being routinely sent to "the back of the line"—meaning that Biden was willing to sacrifice White people to privilege people of color. Or, if you believe the vaccines are harmful, Biden was protecting White People and accelerating the mass-demise of People of Color. 

I half-expected to see Trump's Black Backers struggling to remove their shirts. 

Speaking of MLK: MLK Speaking 

A timely note from the Berkeley Historical Society asks: Did you know you can listen to Rev. Martin Luther King's 1967 UC Berkeley speech, "America's Chief Moral Dilemma," recorded on the steps of Sproul Hall by KPFA on May 17, 1967? The stirring online presentation is accompanied by a number of great photos from the event, all courtesy of Berkeley Community Media's YouTube channel. For a half-hour video version, see Bay Area Television Archive. 

Lynchings: Still As American as Apple Pie 

There's a new petition making the rounds, courtesy of The Daily Kos. The header reads: "Tell the US Senate to make lynching a federal crime by passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act." 

It was a bit of a shock to discover that lynching is NOT recognized as a hate crime in the USA. Now I'm wondering whether decapitations, eviscerations, dismemberments, acid attacks, unprompted pummellings, and immolations are considered "hate crimes." 

Forget the Pepper Spray.
The Hot New Urban Weapons Is a Flashlight 

A new "tactical flashlight" available from Buy-elitetac.com, has proven so devastating that purchasing the device should require background checks. 

As an online video extols: "This US army engineer built a device to give Americans the peace of mind they deserve when outside in the dark." At issue is a powerful flashlight that not only illuminates vast swatches of pitch-black surroundings but is also so powerful it can boil water, cook food, ignite paper, and burn through metal. The video ads make it clear that this new device also can be used as a weapon to burn, blind, and bully victims. 

The Elite Tac website promotes the small flashlight as a weapon that can be used "in self-defense." 

"Strobe mode" (one of the device's five settings) can be used to "get someone’s attention from far away or to blind an attacker." In the case of the burns-through-metal Elite Tac, that last line should read "blind the attacker permanently." It's time to start working on new laws to protect the public from the use of these eye-scorching, flesh-lighting "flashlights." 

Ukraine On Fire 

In Oliver Stone's award-winning (but woefully under-publicized) documentary, "Ukraine on Fire," the acclaimed filmmaker exposes the CIA's role in the 2014 US-backed coup that lead to the violent Kiev Massacre that toppled Viktor Yanukovych's Russian-allied government. Stone charges the Western Media with covering up the real story about political developments in Ukraine—including Washington's complicity with Ukraine's neo-Nazi movements and the role of Joe Biden's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland, in deciding who would assume post-coup power as Ukraine's new pro-US puppet. 

In addition to being caught on tape, profanely dismissing members of the European Union, Nuland was also photographed during the US-backed coup handing out free cookies to anti-government protesters in Ukraine's capital. In her defense, Nuland denied the cookie claim and insisted she only handed out "sandwiches." 

The chain, "Dollar Tree" has abandoned the everything's a buck policy and has begun to roll out higher prices, selling some items for 1.25 and some at even 1.50. Faithful shoppers are affected by this, but not in all instances in a bad way. 

Inflation, supply chain issues, and wages have all gone into the formula of making it necessary for Dollar Tree's shift. A company cannot continue to exist if they can't make a profit. We've seen outdated companies crumble and disappear off the face of the Earth in the past two decades. Some have become strictly online companies while others have ceased to exist altogether. My experiences with working in the electronic repair industry gives me some idea of how retail has to function to survive. 

I've been behind the scenes as a technician in a repair company that customarily tacked exorbitant charges on very simple to do jobs. A customer was outraged when he found out that he had to pay $95 for replacement of a simple rubber wheel inside his VCR. Any company has to pay rent on their retail space, has to pay their employees their wages, has to pay for lighting, has to pay for insurance and licensing, and the list goes on. Any company has to pay its expenses and still has to bring in a profit. This is why customers sometimes have to deal with some items overcharged. 

Dollar Tree is no different. They have to pay lighting, plumbing, wages, insurance, space rental, and they have to pay for everything they sell when they purchase it from wholesalers. Thus, it could be predicted that inflation, rising costs of everything, and supply chain issues may make it impossible or next to impossible to continue to sell anything good for a dollar. 

I've seen items I loved at Dollar Tree disappear from the frozen food section, and I was heartbroken. Dollar Tree is a great place to get cheap stationary that you can't find anywhere else, and a dollar and a quarter isn't too much to ask. 

By adding a quarter rather than ten cents or some other amount, calculating and predicting how much you'll pay will continue to be easy. It is very simple: pick out four food items and you'll pay 5 dollars. If you are buying nonfood items, you must account for sales tax. 

A dollar isn't worth as much as it once was. And if Dollar Tree has to boost its prices, some items may become available that the company previously was forced to stop selling. There was once a frozen breakfast they sold, scrambled eggs, hash browns, and a couple of tiny sausage links. Gone years ago. If that item could come back, it'd be well worth the price hike. 

I don't believe customers will be adversely affected. If you can get hold of a dollar to buy something, you can probably obtain another quarter. 

No one can predict the future. The price increase could harm Dollar Tree, or maybe not. It is very clear to everyone that things are changing. What they will change into, we don't yet know.

Worth Noting:

Very light week ahead – Chinese New Year is Tuesday, February 1^st and given as the reason for not scheduling any “council” or council policy committee meetings all week.  

Wednesday - The Board of Library Trustees meets at 6:30 pm and the Homeless Panel of Experts meets at 7 pm. The packet for the Homeless Panel of Experts is worth a quick look. The Disability Commission is listed in the City Community calendar, but no agenda is posted on the webpage.

Thursday - The last Community meeting sponsored by the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) on Reimagining Public Safety is Thursday at 6 pm. The Housing Advisory Commission and Landmarks Preservation Commission meet at 7 pm.



Residential Walking Tour Surveys end Monday January 31. This weekend is your last opportunity to comment on six multi-unit buildings in the Downtown and 12 multi-unit buildings in West Berkeley Downtown Berkeley Tour Booklet | Online Survey West Berkeley Tour Booklet | Online Survey

(thank you Igor Tregub for reminder)



The City Council Regular meeting agenda February 8, 2022 is available for comment. The full agenda follows the list of city meetings.



Sunday, January 30, 2022

Berkeley Equity Summit Series #7 at 6 pm

Videoconference: https://bit.ly/3znCbZl

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 838 7675 7317 Passcode: 341906

AGENDA: Right to Return, Reparations, join the conversation, event is BIPOC led and organized.

 

Monday, January 31, 2022 & Tuesday February 1, 2022 -No city meetings found 

Wednesday, February 2, 2022 

Board of Library Trustees at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86042306505 

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

AGENDA: Action III.A. Discontinue Use of Unique Management Services (Collection Agency), B. 2022 Priority Setting, C. Advance salary study. 

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

Homeless Service Panel of Experts at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/92491365323 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 924 9136 5323 

AGENDA: 6. Presentation on crisis stabilization program model in Bend, Oregon with Q&A and commission discussion, 7. Presentation on family homelessness with Q&A and commission discussion, 8. Staff presentation of all streams of City funding allocated for services, across division, provided to homeless population, 9. Staff update on homeless Point-in-Time Count. 

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

Commission on Disability at 6:00 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81398518395?pwd=TnBwK0FhempsWURTT2pQYTlTYmdEZz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 813 9851 8395 Passcode: 112370 

AGENDA: no meeting notice or agenda posted on commission homepage, listed in community calendar 

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

Thursday, February 3, 2022 

Housing Advisory Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89379728829 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 893 7972 8829 

AGENDA: 3. Public Comment, 6. Presentation on a Housing Preference Policy for leasing new affordable housing units. 

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

Landmarks Preservation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81669199336 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 816 6919 9336 

AGENDA: 5. 2328 Channing Way – Structural Alteration Permit for Luttrell House 

6. 2524 Piedmont – Request to grant designation – Wurts-Lenfest House 

7. 130 Berkeley Square – Demolition referral for Southern Pacifi Downtown Station 

8. 134 Berkeley Square – Demolition referral for Southern Pacific Office 

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

Berkeley Reimagining Public Safety Community Meeting at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84016485564?pwd=MVl1RiszTHpYY1J2VnFEMVFET0dJQT09 

Teleconference: try 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 840 1648 5564 

AGENDA: North, UC Campus, Southeast-Districts 5,6,7,8, Last National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform Community meeting in case you missed the one for your neighborhood. 

https://berkeley-rps.org/ 

WETA – Water Emergency Transportation Authority at 1 pm 

Hybrid: In-Person 670 W Hornet Ave, Alameda, 94501 and Virtual Options 

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

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

AGENDA: 5. Reports a. State of SF Bay Ferry Project, COVID Service Impacts, 8. Public Outreach to extend Fiscal Year 2022 Pandemic Recovery Program. 

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

Friday, February 4, 2022 & Saturday, February 5, 2022 & Sunday, February 6, 2022 

No City meetings or events found 

+++++++++++++++++ 

CITY COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING AGENDA February 8, 2022 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83320305084 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 833 2030 5084 

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

AGENDA CONSENT: 1. 2^nd reading Commission Reorganization Creating the Environment and Climate Commission, 2. 2^nd reading amendments to ADU Ordinance, 3. 2^nd reading Amendments to ADU ordinance to address public safety concerns (ADU ordinance for hills/fire zones 2&3), 4. 2^nd reading 15 year Lease and cooperative agreement with BART for retail space/Downtown Berkeley Bike Station at Center Street Garage, 5. Resolution reviewing and ratifying the local COVID-19 Emergency, 6. Resolution to continue Legislative Bodies (boards, commissions, committees) to meet via videoconference and teleconference, 7. $4,468,611 Formal bid solicitations, 8. 4 yr Contract $2,712,145 with O2X for Public Safety Wellness Programming to provide physical and mental wellness program for Berkeley Fire & Police Departments 2/9/2022 – 2/8/2026 with option to extend for up to 6 additional years in 2 yr increments for a total of 10 years total not to exceed $7,948,612, 9. Contract $200,000 with Wildland Res Mgmt for Community Wildlife Protection Plan with option to extend for an additional 4 years in 2-year increments and total not to exceed $400,000, 10. Adopt an exception to the 180-day waiting period for hiring retired annuitant as an extra help employee, 11. Contract add $120,000 total $310,000 with Epic Recruiting to provide additional recruiting and advertising services for police and professional staff vacancies, 12. Peace and Justice Commission (P&JC) - Resolution supporting immigration reform, 13. P&JC – Resolution in Support of Justice for Haitian Refugees, 14. P&JC – Normalize Diplomatic and Economic Relations with Cuba, 15. P&JC Japanese American Day of Remembrance, 16. Harrison, co-sponsors Arreguin, Bartlett, Wengraf, Budget Referral and Resolution Establishing Process for Siting and Developing Public Electric vehicle DC Fast Charging Hubs, ACTION: Berkeley’s 2019 Community-Wide Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, ZAB Appeal 2956 Hillegass – add 170 sq ft single family-dwelling on non-conforming 2,754 sq ft lot, INFORMATION REPORTS: 16. Update on Berkeley Redistricting Process, 17. Healthy Checkout Ordinance Protocols. 

++++++++++++++ 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date 2/22/2021 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date 2/8/2021 

1643-47 California – new basement level and 2^nd story date TBD 

Remanded to ZAB or LPC 

1205 Peralta – Conversion of an existing garage 

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

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

1814 Chestnut – AUP to permit expansion of garage door opening within non-conforming front yard setback 2/1/2022 

2836 College – Business sign, 12’ x 1.5’ with letter 9” tall Vibrant Nails and Lshes 2/8/2022 

1854 Euclid – Installation of 36” x 36” circular double sided blade sign and small amount vinyl color on door, 2/8/2022 

1519 Fairview – Add new 3-story detached dwelling unit with ave ht 28’, with building separation 12’ where 16’ is required, and add more than 6 bedrooms to lot on 6750 sq ft lot with existing triplex 2/2/2022 

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 

February 15 – Homeless and Mental Health Services 

March 15 – Housing Element Update 

April 19 – Fire Department Standards of Coverage Study, BART Station Planning 

Unscheduled Workshops/Presentations 

Cannabis Health Considerations 

Alameda County LAFCO Presentation 

BART Development (January or February) 

Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program 

Civic Center – Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building (Tentative: Action Item) 

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 

Worth Noting:

The week starts with a virtual Breakfast at 9 am Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.

Tuesday at 6 pm City Council returns from recess for the first regular council meeting of 2022.

Wednesday is filled with 11 city meetings. FITES at 2:30 reviews update to Landscape policy to include native plants. Planning Commission at 7 pm agendized hearing is a condo conversion. The Civic Arts Commission and Commission on the Status of Women meet at 6 pm. The Health, Welfare & Community Action meets at 6:30 pm. The Commission on Labor meets at 7 pm.

Thursday is filled with 7 city meetings. The Land Use Committee meets at 10:30 am on streamlining toxic remediation in the manufacturing district. At 6 pm Council has a special meeting on infrastructure while NICJR conducts a Community Public Safety meeting for Districts 3 & 4. The Transportation Commission meets at 7 pm on Southside Streets and BerkDOT. The Rent Board and DRC also meet at 7 pm. 

The January 25 City Council regular meeting agenda is available for review and comment.

Sunday, January 16, 2022 - No City meetings or events found
 

Monday, January 17, 2022 – Martin Luther King Jr Holiday 

2022 MLK (virtual) Breakfast at 9 – 10:30 am 

Event is free, donations are welcome 

Pre-register: https://www.berkeleymlkjrday.org/#rsvp 

https://www.berkeleymlkjrday.org/ 

Tuesday, January 18, 2022 

City Council Regular Meeting, January 18 at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84056667405 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 840 5666 7405 

AGENDA: full agenda follows list of meetings or use link 

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

Wednesday, January 19, 2022 

City Council Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment & Sustainability Committee (FITES) at 2:30 pm, 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82147250716 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 821 4725 0716 

AGENDA: 2. Native and Drought Resistant Plants and Landscaping Policy Update, Unscheduled Items: 3. Wear and tear on roads by commercial vehicles, 4. Plastic bags, 5. GHG Limits Update Climate Action Plan. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/Clerk/Home/Policy_Committee__Facilities,_Infrastructure,_Transportation,_Environment,___Sustainability.aspx 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board – Outreach Committee at 5 pm 

Videoconference: 4. Public Comment, Election, Discussion and Update/Possible Action: 6. Tenant Survey, 7. Fair Chance Ordinance, 8. Eviction Moratorium, Tenant Protection Ordinance, https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89650177721?pwd=MDEzb3A2YS93SGFBcXdhWmI4NUVJUT09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 896 5017 7721 Passcode: 351819 

AGENDA: 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/rent/ 

Board of Library Trustees at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86042306505 

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

AGENDA: II. C. 25^th Annual Authors Dinner Event May 21, 2022, D. License Agreement between Library and the Berkeley Public Library Foundation for us of space in the Central Library, III. A. Public report of actions taken Dec 8 Closed session. 

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

Civic Arts Commission Public Art Committee at 2:30 pm 

Videoconference: hhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/86089984060 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 860 8998 4060 

AGENDA: 4. a. Cube Space exhibition by Leila Weefur, b. Conservation on “In Berkeley” by Nancy Selvin, c. Design for Berkeley arts Works Project Mural by Eduardo Pineda, d. Design for Berkeley Art Works Project by Suzi Garner 

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

Civic Arts Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://cityofberkeley-info.zoomgov.com/j/1614241301 

Teleconference: 1-669-254-5252 Meeting ID: 161 424 1301 

AGENDA: 4. PRESENTATIONS: a. Housing Element, b. Berkeley arts education Steering Committee, 6. Chair’s Report a. January 25 City Council Item on Affordable Housing for Artists & Cultural Workers, b. Commission Vacancy, 7. DISCUSSION & ACTION ITEMS: a. Affordable housing for artists, b. Cube Space exhibition by Leila Weefur, c. Conservation on “In Berkeley” by Nancy Selvin, d. Design for Berkeley arts Works Project Mural by Eduardo Pineda, e. Design for Berkeley Art Works Project by Suzi Garner 

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

Commission on Disability at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84591042999?pwd=NnRqQS9pdTY1cVpXU0xORnlzV3kyZz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 845 9104 2999 Passcode: 597888 

AGENDA: 2. Elections, 3. Action Letter to Council requesting appointment of commission members, DISCUSSION ITEMS: Housing Element, Elevator Ordinance, Easy Does It. 

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

Commission on Labor at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87306806434 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 873 0680 6434 

AGENDA: 5. Fair Work Week Policy 

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

Commission on the Status of Women at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87407560738?pwd=dzd4VFpqdEtxOGRNQnBqTkFMUnRoQT09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 874 0756 0738 

AGENDA: 5. ACCW Membership renewal, 6. CA Commissions Grant, 7. CEDAW, 8. Friends of the Commission on the status of Women, 9. Townhall, 10. Gender equity disparity in city awarded contracts as identified in Mason-Tillman Report, 11. Film/speaker event on reproductive rights under Roe v. Wade. 

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

Commission on Aging at 1 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/87859343194 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 878 5934 3194 

AGENDA: no agenda posted 

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

Human, Welfare & Community Action Commission at 6:30 pm 

Videoconference: https://zoom.us/j/4863098496 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 486 309 8496 

AGENDA: 7. Community Service Block Grant Amendment, 8. Review CofB funded agency Program and Financial reports, Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program (BORP) program and financial reports, 9. Vacant properties 10. Alta Bates Update, 11. Easy Does It review, 12. State of homelessness, 13. Air quality, 14. Discuss potential infrastructure and affordable housing bonds/taxes. 

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

Planning Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83013936336 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 830 1393 6336 

AGENDA: 9. Public Hearing: tentative Tract Map #8626 2023-2025 Kala Bagai Way formerly known as 2023-2025 Shattuck Ave, 7-story mixed use project approved by ZAB June 6, 2020 (condo conversion hearing) 

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

Thursday, January 20, 2022 

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

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81890429983 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 818 9042 9983 

AGENDA: 2. Discussion of Priorities for future small business listening sessions, 3. Streamlining Toxic Remediation in Manufacturing Districts, Unscheduled Items: Amendments to BMC 23C.22: Short Term rentals 

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

City Council Special meeting at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85382939746 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 853 8293 9746 

AGENDA: 1. Discuss Vision 2050, Infrastructure Priorities, stakeholder and Community Engagement and City’s Bonding Capacity; and Seek Direction on November 2022 Revenue Measure(s) 

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

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/81121155936?pwd=TGhIZ25HV3luZWpIWmE5YlJ2WVJ4Zz09 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 811 2115 5936 Passcode: 837486 

AGENDA: 5. Special Presentation by Corina Gould on the Importance of Land Acknowledgements, ACTION items: 1) Regulation 801 Proper Filing of Rent registration Statement, 2) Amendments to Regulation 1311 Alleging Compliance in Complaint, 3) Modify contract with Sloan Sakai Yeung & Wong LLP for FY 2021-2022, 4) Modify contract with 3DiSystems, Inc., 5) Exploation of possible actions to support Indigenous people of Berkeley, 6) Change name of IRA/AGARegistration Committee. 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/rent/ 

Design Review Committee at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84599873268 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 845 9987 3268 

AGENDA: 1. 1367 University – Final Design review – 39-unit group living accommodation (GLA) operating as a single-room occupancy (SRO) residential hotel on a vacant lot, 

1201-1205 San Pablo – preliminary design review – to construct a 6-story, mixed-use building on vacant lot with 66 units (including 5 very low income units) 1720 sq ft commercial space, 2514 sq ft of usable open space, 17-28 ground level parking spaces. 

https://www.cityofberkeley.info/designreview/ 

Fair Campaign Practices Commission and Open Government Commission at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83555657961 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-6833 Meeting ID: 835 5565 7961 

AGENDA: meeting schedule and election of Chair and Vice-chair. 

http://www.cityofberkeley.info/FCPC/ 

Transportation Commission at 7 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85409127060 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 854 0912 7060 

AGENDA: B.1. Commission Reorganization, 3. Southside Complete Streets, 4. BerkDOT, 5. Ashby Interchange. 

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

Reimagining Public Safety Community Meeting Downtown Civic arts District, South Berkeley – Districts 3 and 4 at 6 pm to 8 pm 

Videoconference: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84016485564?pwd=MVl1RiszTHpYY1J2VnFEMVFET0dJQT09 

Teleconference: not listed try 1-669-900-6833 or 1-669-900-9128 Meeting ID: 840 1648 5564 

AGENDA: not described 

https://berkeley-rps.org/ 

Friday, January 21, 2022 & Saturday, January 22, 2022 & Sunday, January 23, 2022 

No City meetings or events found 

************* 

City Council Regular Meeting, January 18 at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84056667405 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 840 5666 7405 

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

AGENDA CONSENT: 1. 2^nd reading Amendment FY 2022 Annual Appropriations Ordinance, 2. Modifying the 2022 City Council meeting schedule, 3. Donation to Animal Shelter from Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation, 4. Extension of Declaration of Homeless Shelter Crisis, 5. Contract add $916,731 total $2,824,024 and extend to 6/20/2022 with Berkeley Food & Housing Project to administer Flexible Spending Programs for Mental Health Division and provide Russell Street Residence, 6. Contract add $220,800 total $320,700 and extend to 6/30/2024 with Resource Development Associates for Results Based Accountability Evaluation, 7. Contract $250,000 1/1/2022 – 6/30/2023 with Options Recovery for Substance Use Disorder Services, 8. Revenue Grant Agreement expected $465,736: Funding from CA Dept of Public Health to expand workforce 7/1/2021-12/31/2025 for STD, HIV, COVId-19 and other infections. 9. Revenue Grant Agreement expected $19,000: Funding from State of CA Dept of Justice 7/1/2021-6/30/2023, 10. Commission Reorganization merge Sugar sweetened Beverage Product Panel and Community Health Commission, 11. Classification and Salary: Limited Term Emergency Medical Technician monthly salary $3,466.67 - $5,026.67, 12 Classification and Salary: Single Function Paramedic monthly salary $5,200 - $7,800, 13. Revise Classification and Salary: Emergency Medical Services Quality Improvement & Education Coordinator monthly salary $12,273.73 - $14,000.13, 14. Revise Classification and increase salary schedule for Deputy Finance Director from maximum of $14,677.47 - $16,120 to align with other CoB Deputy Director classifications, 15.Increase Salary for Director of Health, Housing & Community Services from $20,151.73 to $21,432 per month, salary adjustment for Department Heads of Finance, Human resources, IT, Parks, Recreation and Waterfront, Planning, Public Works and Fire Chief from maximum of $20,987 to $21,432, 16. Commission reorganization Create the Environment and Climate Commission dissolving the Zero waste Commission, Energy Commission and the Community Environmental Advisory Commission, 17. Kesarwani, co-sponsors Arreguin, Taplin, Robinson – Refer to City Manager to Establish a Marina Master Plan for Parking with Consideration for Establishing a Waterfront Parking Benefits District including demand-based parking, pay stations, pay schedules and/or frequent user/employee permits, consider revenues to boost Marina Fund, 18. Kesarwani and Bartlett, co-sponsors Arreguin, Taplin – Refer to City Manager to Establish a Framework for Parking Benefits Districts in the Gilman and Lorin Commercial Districts. 19. Harrison – Budget Referral: Allocate projected revenues from voter-approved Transportation Network Company User Tax to Support Priority Mobility Infrastructure, including Tier 1 Protected Bicycle lanes and crossings, pedestrian street crossings, and quick-build Public Transit Projects, 20. Wengraf -Resolution Reaffirm Roe vs Wade, 21. Wengraf, co-sponsor Hahn - OPPOSE Net Metering 3.0 Proposed Decision of the CPUC and SUPPORT Net Energy Metering Policy that Continues Growth of Local and Rooftop Solar, ACTION: 22. Recreation and Camps Program Fee Increases, 23. Amendments to Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) Ordinance, 24. Amendments to ADU Ordinance to address public safety concerns, 25. Street Maintenance and Rehabilitation Policy and 5-year Paving Plan – a. City Manager recommendation, b. Public Works Commission recommendation, c. Facilities, Infrastructure, Transportation, Environment & Sustainability Committee recommendation, 26. Adopt-a-Spot Program Development recommendations – a. Public Works Commission and Parks and Waterfront Commission recommendation, b. City Manager recommendation refer to FY2023-FY2024 budget process, 

City Council Regular meeting, January 25 at 6 pm 

Videoconference: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84888765689 

Teleconference: 1-669-900-9128 or 1-877-853-5257 Meeting ID: 848 8876 5689 

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

AGENDA CONSENT: 1. Minutes for approval, 2. Revenue Contract $90,999.50 from Sierra Health Foundation for IT equipment, telehealth licenses and PPE, 3. Fee assessment State of CA Self-Insurance Fund (Worker’s Comp) $268,093.55 for FY 2022, 4. Grant Application: Land and Water Conservation Fund – Grove Park Renovation Project total project cost $2,400,000, 5. Contract add $250,000 total $500,000 and to remove the $50,000 annual limit with DC Electric Group, Inc. for On-call electronic traffic calming devices maintenance project, 6. Contract $1,780,859 which includes 10% contingency of $161,896 with Glosage Engineering, In for Sanitary sewer Rehabilitation at various locations, 7. Lease 1. Ordinance authorizing CM to execute lease agreement with BART for retail space at Center Street Garage for 15 year lease 2/1/2021-1/31/2036 and 2. $225,000 lease 3-year term 7/1/2020 – 6/30/2023 with BART for operation of Downtown Berkeley Bike Station in Center Street Garage, 8. Arreguin, co-sponsor Bartlett - Resolution requesting State Cannabis Cultivation Tax Reform, 9. 2022 Council seating arrangement, 10. Arreguin – 2022 appointments of councilmembers to committees, regional bodies and commissions, 11. Hahn, co-sponsors Taplin, Harrison, Wengraf – Referring the Civic arts Commission’s affordable housing for artists in Berkeley Report and other Artist Live, Work and Live-Work opportunities to the Housing Element Update, ACTION: 10. Resolution accepting the Surveillance Technology Report for Automatic License Plate Readers, GPS Trackers, Body Worn Cameras and the Street Level Imagery Project, 13. COVID-19 Response 2021 Summary Report, INFORMATION REPORTS: 14. LPO NOD 2212 Fifth Stree, 15. LPO NOD 1120 second Street, 16. LPO NOD 1325 Arch, 17. LPO NOD 1960 University. 

Public Hearings Scheduled – Land Use Appeals 

1527 Sacramento – 2^nd story addition date 2/22/2021 

2956 Hillegass - addition to nonconforming structure date 2/8/2021 

Remanded to ZAB or LPC 

1205 Peralta – Conversion of an existing garage 

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

SFD = Single Family Dwelling 

3005 - Benvenue expand west front window façade within required front setback on existing SFD 1/26/2022 

1837-39 Berkeley Way – Demolish the existing dwelling at rear of property and build 3-story dwelling with average height of 28’ and a rear setback of 3’3” where 15’ is required 1/10/2022 

1643-47 California – Reconfigure and lift existing duplex and ad 3^rd floor on non-conforming to lot coverage, density and setbacks 1/10/2022 

2345 Channing – Remove a dwelling unit located in the Pilgrimage Hall of the First Congregational Church of Berkeley that was destroyed in 2016, 1/10/2022 

1351 Dwight – Construct 730 sq ft addition to existing 1720 sq ft 2-story SFD adding 2 bedrooms total 5 average height 22’9” within non-conforming front and rear yards 1/27/2022 

2907 Ellis – Replace 8’ tall accessory structure with new accessory structure with average ht 10’ in same footprint 1/26/2022 

1028 Keeler – Alterations within the side (south) non-conforming setback of SFD 1/26/2022 

2962 Russell - Install unenclosed hot tub in backyard 1/27/2022 

810 San Luis – Legalize 120 sq ft balcony with unenclosed hot tub and add new balcony that exceeds 14’ in average ht on 2^nd floor at rear of SFD 1/26/2022 

1934 – 40 San Pablo – Use permit modification to increase ht from 22’ to 27’ 9” increase gross floor area from 6185 sq ft to 6893 sq ft 1/10/2022 

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 

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 

BART Development (January or February) 

Civic Arts Grantmaking Process & Capital Grant Program 

Civic Center – Old City Hall and Veterans Memorial Building (Tentative: Action Item) 

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

This was an ugly week in so many ways, with occasional bright spots. It finished with the flickering of lights, howling wind and then nothing but darkness at midnight Friday. 

We lost on getting voting rights passed, thanks to Senators Sinema and Manchin, but the nooses around the Trump business , the Trump family and layers of the planned coup, including the “former guy”, looked to be getting tighter. It is hard to tell if we will come out of the divide between those of us who want to live in a multi-cultural democracy and those driven by maintaining White supremacy with autocracy bellowed across airwaves and social media as the answer. Of course, the lust for power, conspiracies, greed and cultish adoration for Donald Trump is right at the center of it. 

The risks at hand should never be underestimated. Some of us are still on pins and needles wondering if the Department of Justice will step up to the plate. 

The biggest unpleasant redistricting surprise in Berkeley was that an open house to present the new redistricting draft maps was announced sometime late last Friday to be held the following day, (Saturday, January 22, 2022) at the Northbrae Church from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm. Included in the post was the announcement of a second in-person open house at the South Berkeley Senior Center on Monday,January 24, from 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm. 

Just why such an announcement would go out late Friday needs some explanation. One would think that such planning had been in the works for more than a few hours on Friday. And, it certainly deserves more than popping up on the community calendar. The email string about which I received from a neighbor started at 20:31 or 8:31 pm on Friday night. 

I can say this week that I am again made dizzy this time looking at the four draft redistricting maps, so I made a chart of each and added the descriptions of the neighborhoods compiled by BCA (Berkeley Citizens Action – an organization familiar with neighborhood identities). The distribution of race and renters and home owners in each proposed map is quite interesting. 

Regardings the four draft maps (Amber, Blue, Maroon, Orange): Two create a second student district instead of just one. And to create those second student districts, the Blue and Maroon maps drive a spear into District 4, the district I live in. District 7, represented by incumbent Councilmember Rigel Robinson, is the current student super majority district. In the draft Blue and Maroon maps, District 4 is gerrymandered into two of the draft versions to create a second student district. 

For a little refresher, there was such an uproar over the redrawing of the council districts after the 2010 census that Berkeley residents successfully gained signatures for a referendum. The whole mess after months of wrangling was finally settled in December 2014. 

This time, with efforts to create a second student district at the expense of existing neighborhoods, one has to ask if this would fall under the prohibition in Line (k) of the California elections code: 

“(k) The commission shall not draw districts for the purpose of favoring or discriminating against a political party or an incumbent or political candidate.” 

Besides being a hit on District 4, adding a second student district panders to a group that hasn’t shown much interest in local elections, if one looks to the turnout for 2018. I couldn’t find the percent of registered voters or voter eligible residents in each district for 2018, but looking at the total votes cast in Berkeley election history District 7 had a pretty poor showing, with only 2,795 votes cast compared to District 1 (7,845), District 4 (5,447) and District 8 (6,523). 

Consider that districts were drawn to relatively equal populations, and in that student population there wouldn’t be many children under the age of 18 living with their voting age parents to dilute the number of eligible voters. District 7 also had the lowest voter turnout in 2020. 

If the Blue and Maroon maps are thrown out, that leaves us with the Amber and Orange maps. 

The Amber map is closest to existing districts with corrections to reunite neighborhoods that were divided in 2014. The Orange map creates a unified waterfront, West Berkeley District. We need to hear from West Berkeley residents regarding their preference between being split between Districts 1 and 2 or being united. 

The Orange and Amber maps are also the most reasonable acknowledgement of the high fire danger areas in the hills. The majority student district is maintained. Keeping District 4 together in the Amber and Orange maps maintains a vital healthy mix there. 

The drop-dead date to finalize the new district map is March 16, 2022. That may sound like a long way off, but that day will be here in a flash. The time to get involved is right now. The next Independent Redistricting Commission meeting is this coming Thursday, January 27 at 6 pm. You can review the draft maps at https://redistricting-commission-berkeley.hub.arcgis.com/ (use the IRC Public Meetings button for meeting links or go to the Activist’s Calendar). 

All of this brings us to the next question: Why did Mayor Arreguin decide to schedule a special meeting, the council work session on TOPA (Tenants Opportunity to Purchase Act), at the very same time as the Independent Redistricting Commission meeting? This looks very much like a deliberate act to dilute the response to TOPA by splitting concerned citizens between TOPA and redistricting. There wasn’t even a whiff of a special meeting on TOPA at the last Agenda and Rules Committee meeting, where dates of work sessions were reviewed. All of this leaves a very unpleasant taste. 

For a little good news, the council voted on January 18^th to maintain the Zero Waste Commission as a single free-standing commission and to merge just two commissions, Community Environmental Advisory Commission and the Energy Commission, into the new Climate and Environment Commission. The council also voted to reject merging the Community Health Commission and the Sugar Sweetened Beverage Panel of Experts. On the first round of votes for the two measures Councilmembers Droste (who authored the merging) and co-sponsors Kesarwani and Robinson voted for the mergers (3 to 6) as they proposed. When they failed to gain support, they came around to vote with the majority in a final 9 to 0. 

At the Land Use Committee meeting on Thursday, it was revealed that Councilmember Taplin’s proposal to streamline toxic remediation at manufacturing sites was for the benefit of the Pacific Steel Casting Company site in West Berkeley. Pacific Steel closed in 2017, and the site, which has toxic contamination, has been dormant. I am not privy to who and what is planned for the takeover of this site, but I have been watching the push to undo the West Berkeley Plan with protections for artists. 

Anyone who is concerned about living over or spending considerable time at work on top of a capped toxic site in an area like West Berkeley, with sea level rise and ground water not far below, should watch the presentation by Kristina Hill, associate professor at UC Berkeley, at the beginning of the Sea Level Rise and Shoreline Contamination Regional Workshop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM4YydPBV3A . The response by Grant Cope from the State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) in the panel at the end of the second day should also be noted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAqnKY9dx6U 

There was another double scheduling of meetings on Thursday evening, but this was a conflict that has no nefarious undertones, just too much going on at once. I started off with Reimaging Public Safety Community Meeting for Districts 3 and 4 and then left to watch the City Council’s special meeting on infrastructure. 

The Reimagining Public Safety Community meeting was up to 26 total participants at one point and then dropped to 23 before I left. Of that total, I counted seven co-hosts all associated with the National Institute of Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) and recognized two city staff names. I called around the next day to see if I missed anything and heard these comments, “if you want to get out of the decision you hire consultants to do it” and another describing the presenters as sounding like “androids reading from their report” and the content as “capitalism run amok.” Maybe these comments made public will improve the next community meeting scheduled for February. 

I was asked to review a book on policing, the 3^rd edition of Walking with the Devil: The Police Code of Silence by Michael W. Quinn, 2016. Not having power for nearly all of Saturday really set me behind. You will read more about that next week after adding my observations from the Reimaging Public Safety Task Force discussion and critique of the NICJR Report this coming Monday evening meeting. 

Review and discussion of the movie “Don’t Look Up” are popping up everywhere including in the PBS Newshour on Thursday evening. It is a must see. If you don’t have Netflix , sign-up or find a friend with Netflix. 

As I listened in darkness to the howling wind, I kept thinking this is what the future of climate catastrophe brings. I was lucky with the thousands of others without power that it wasn’t 10° or eventlasting days without safe drinking water and all else that can run amok with loss of power. Even though this weekend ended brightly, we need to face what’s ahead. Climate is the comet headed straight at us. 

Our continued inaction and denial will leave our children, grandchildren and the next generations with an earth that is uninhabitable. Already we are living through superstorms and climate refugees are converging on country borders worldwide. There will be more, and that brings us to our book club selection for January The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where We Go from Here by Hope Jahren, 2020. 

Jahren has a wonderful way of pulling together the story of more of everything not with hammering us with dismal portrayals of the future, but instead describing where we are and giving us much to think about. The first comments in book club were how they loved the book. We each had chapters that grabbed us. I loved the chapter on aquafarming – fish and energy including moving around. 

The Story of More is available at the library. This is one case where I liked the book so much, I bought a copy. 

Points on Redistricting

BCA Description of neighborhoods 

Bateman Neighborhood Association: The City has designated your neighborhood WEST of Telegraph Ave. with the borders being Adeline to Telegraph and Ashby to the Oakland border. I tried to tell them that your neighborhood is actually EAST of Telegraph around Alta Bates, but they did not change it. It would be helpful if you would write in to tell them what your actual borders are. 

Berkeley South: Your neighborhood has been mis-labeled as the Bateman Neighborhood. See my note above. Every one of the 4 draft maps under consideration has carved your neighborhood out of South Berkeley's District 3 and moved you to Lori Droste's District 8, to "Unify the Bateman Neighborhood in District 8". 

Claremont-Elmwood Neighborhood Association and Panoramic Hills Association: The biggest question for your neighborhoods is whether Panoramic Hill should be in District 8 or District 7. The Amber and Orange maps put Panoramic Hill in District 8 with CENA so that the high fire zones are consolidated into 2 districts. The Blue and Maroon maps put Panoramic Hill in District 7 and divides the high fire zones into 3 and 4 districts, respectively. 

LeConte Neighborhood Association: The Maroon map divides your neighborhood along Ellsworth with the eastern portion in District 8 and the western portion in District 3. The other 3 maps have unified your neighborhood. The Amber and Orange maps put you in District 3 and the Blue map puts you in District 8. 

McGee-Spaulding Neighbors in Action: The Blue map divides your neighborhood in half at Allston Way and puts the north part in District 1 and the south part in an elongated District 3. The Maroon map creates an elongated District 4 that spans from Sacramento to Grizzly Peak with much more narrow North-South borders. Both the Amber and the Orange Maps keep your neighborhood intact. Your comments will be very important. 

North Berkeley Neighborhood Alliance: The Blue map splits your neighborhood at Sacramento with the west portion in District 1 and the east portion in District 5. The Amber, Orange, and Maroon maps use MLK as the eastern border and keeps you in District 1. 

West Berkeley/Poet's Corner/Oceanview: The most radical change proposed is to put all of the marina and West Berkeley to San Pablo Ave in one district which will also include San Pablo Park. Both the Blue and the Orange maps create this new district and call it District 2. Poet's Corner moves to District 1 in this scenario. The Amber and Maroon maps keep District 1 and District 2 separated at University Ave and Poet's Corner remains in District 2. 

Recently, Barbados became the world’s newest republic breaking ties with Queen Elizabeth 55 years after it became an independent nation. There are also loud voices calling for the United Kingdom to pay reparations for the enslavement of the people of Barbados. Reparations come “55 years overdue” and should have happened when Barbados won its independence in 1966. 

Many other former British colonies including Canada, Australia and Jamaica choose to remain to be subservient to the British crown and offer Queen Elizabeth pomp and pageantry when she visits their countries. This comes in sharp contrast, to the feisty Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley who pushed to cut ties from the crown and charter a new chapter for Barbados breaking from its colonial past. David Comissiong, Barbados Ambassador to the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM is leading the demand for reparations. The superabundant profits on the basis of the super-exploitation of African labor further amplifies the need for reparations. 

Finally, Prince Charles traveled to Barbados to attend the ceremony when Barbados became a republic. He acknowledged Britain’s “appalling atrocity of slavery” in the Caribbean. If Prince Charles acknowledges wrong doing, then surely these past crimes would bolster Barbados’s demand for reparations.

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This is a Very Good Deal. Go for it! 

On a party line vote, the House of Representatives on January 13 passed ‘‘Freedom to Vote: John 3 R. Lewis Act’’ that combines the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Amendment Act. However, the democrats in the Senate did not have the votes to change the filibuster rule to allow passage by a simple majority. Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) voted against changing the filibuster rule. However, Manchin and Sinema are not solely to blame for the failure to pass the voting rights legislation; they share the blame with the 50 Republican senators who voted against the legislation.  

Once upon a time, voting rights was a bi-partisan issue. Remember the 1965 Voting Rights Act passed the House by a 328–74 vote (Democrats 217–54, Republicans 111–20), and the Senate passed it by a 79–18 vote (Democrats 49–17, Republicans 30–1). 

The U.S. Senate filibuster is an archaic rule not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. Originally it required a procedure (a cloture motion) to end the debate and take a vote. It took 2/3 (67) of the Senate to overcome a filibuster; it was later changed to 60 votes. It meant that a minority of the Senate could defeat a motion by the majority. This is not what the framers of the U.S. Constitution envisioned. They repeatedly stated that majority rule was the “first principle” of a Republic.  

One of the primary uses of the filibuster during the 20th century was to block civil rights legislation, especially during the Jim Crow era. Of the 30 measures that were derailed by the filibuster between 1917 and 1994, exactly half of them involved civil rights such as anti-lynching bills proposed in 1922 and 1935; the Civil Rights Act of 1957; and legislation that would have prohibited poll taxes and outlawed discrimination in employment, housing, and voting.  

Unfortunately, in 1913 the U.S. Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act, holding that it is unconstitutional to use the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act to determine which jurisdictions are subject to the pre-clearance requirement of Section 5 of the Act before implementing any changes to their voting laws or practices. The ruling upended legal protections for minority voters. 

In 2021, using the baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen (the “Big Lie”), 19 states enacted 34 laws that made voting harder, while many blue states expanded access, particularly by mail voting. We can expect more such restrictive laws this year. These voter-suppression laws permit more partisan control over election administration and make it easier to cast doubt on future election results through partisan ballot reviews. President Joe Biden, called such restrictive laws in Georgia, "Jim Crow in the 21st Century.” This wave of restrictions was made possible by the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision, that placed limits on the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 

Remember when Republican Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) Utah voted to convict former president Donald Trump in the first impeachment trial and in the second impeachment trial when Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Ben Sasse (R-Neb) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) joined Mitt Romney in voting to convict?  

Today, the principled republicans have been silenced, too afraid to speak out against Trump for fear of alienating him or his base. Now the faces of the GOP seem to be unprincipled republicans like Reps. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). 

The failure to enact the voting rights legislation will hurt President Biden even though the legislation didn’t pass because of the filibuster and the obstruction by the divided Senate Democrats and the Senate Republicans. 

As we marked Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the family of the late civil rights leader cut through the usual lofty invocations to make a specific ask: “No celebration without legislation.” There was no voting rights legislation passed. In a 1963 interview, Martin Luther King is on point in the aftermath of the Senate vote, “I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.” Sens. Manchin and Sinema and the 50 Senate Republicans are those “misguided senators” who derailed ‘‘Freedom to Vote: John 3 R. Lewis Act.’’  

The GOP has handed the party to Trump. It is now an authoritarian party with an authoritarian policy agenda. If we are not careful, we will end up with an authoritarian minority party running our country.

When you feel too depressed to do anything, is that a good enough reason not to clean your house? When you feel too scattered with psychotic thoughts, is that a good enough reason not to go to school or work? When your mind is in the clouds with mania, does that justify not doing the dishes, or does it justify not preparing a meal? When your psychotic anger is brimming up to your ears, is that enough of a reason to remain locked in your room, against the wishes of others?

Do symptoms of mental illness justify not doing what is expected and/or necessary?

For a guide to answering this question, look to the idea of cause and effect. What will be the projected scenario of delaying something or not doing it? What will you get if you overcome the hesitancy? There is no right or wrong answer to either of these questions. 

Sometimes you must prioritize your wellness and not do as someone, including yourself, expect you to do. You risk consequences if you fail to do as someone expects. They may express anger and/or disappointment. They may retaliate. It is different in all cases. They may understand and they may be supportive of you taking time to take care of yourself. 

If you push it too hard to accomplish something, you might be risking your well-being. Stroke and heart attack are at the top of the list. Or you might sustain nonphysical damage which is much harder to measure and define. 

I've been in medical waiting rooms packed with ill patients in which it was damaging to me just to be in that place for forty-five minutes. This is because I am sensitive to environments. I don't know whether you would attribute that to energy, as I am inclined to do, or some other cause. The influence of spending time around too many sick people is genuine and shouldn't be dismissed or underestimated. This is also explainable through other routes including ones that only allow beliefs supported by currently known science. 

You could get an airborne virus in these settings. Or you could be subliminally influenced by conversations that you overhear or influenced by people's physical appearances. You could be influenced by being stuck among too many people packed together, a cause of stress. It does not go against science that people's stamina is limited, and we need to balance exertions against rest. 

Psychological damage exists even though it may not be easy to measure. Science doesn't know a great deal of what causes it, and how to understand its effects on us. If you push your mind and body harder than advisable, you don't always get rewarded for more and more "work ethic." Sometimes you do damage to yourself such that you become unable to function at the previous level. 

Contrary to the classic "work ethic" I assert that human beings aren't machines that should be expected to function under all circumstances. We are made of soft stuff--all of us with no exceptions. We need to be gentle on ourselves or risk consequences. 

Back to cause and effect... 

Does it make sense to put off taking out trash, doing a load of laundry, brushing your teeth, doing a bit of work at your school or job? Sometimes it does make sense. And other times, you just have to perform even though you'd rather not deal with it. There is no exact rule. That's because people are complicated, and the world is complicated. The world doesn't follow the rules that human beings make up to explain it. If it did, we'd be living in a cartoon and not in the world. 

Jack Bragen is author of "Revising Behaviors that Don't Work," available from numerous vendors.

The Oakland Symphony originally scheduled its Friday, January 21st concert to offer two works by American composers, the Gaelic Symphony by Amy Beach (1867-1944), and the oratorio sanctuary road by contemporary composer Paul Moravec. The latter work is based on the book The Underground Railroad Records by abolitionist William Still, who helped 800 escaped slaves travel safely from the south and avoid arrest. I was eagerly looking forward to hearing both of these works, especially since I had recently heard Amy Beach’s Piano Concerto as well as her Gaelic Symphony on KDFC, the Bay Area’s classical music station. On first hearing, these two works by Amy Beach struck me as endlessly inventive and full of virtuosity and musical surprises. Having never heard any of Amy Beach’s music performed live, I was full of eager anticipation as I approached Oakland’s Paramount Theatre on Friday evening, January 21. 

Alas, on arrival I was told that neither the Amy Beach Gaelic Symphony nor Paul Moravec’s sanctuary road would be given, the reason being that the latter work required a large chorus to perform onstage without wearing masks, and this was deemed at the last minute a non starter due to the current surge of the Omicron variant of Covid 19. It was hoped that this entire program would be able to be offered at some time in the future. For tonight, however, the last minute change of program would offer Mozart’s Symphony No. 29 in A Major and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major. In addition, four of the soloists originally scheduled to perform in sanctuary road would offer songs accompanied on piano by Kymry Esainko. 

The revised program opened with Guest Conductor Leslie B. Dunner leading the Oakland Symphony in Mozart’s 29th Symphony. This work, written when Mozart was 18 years old, is hailed as a breakthrough work in which young Mozart showed a new, bold mastery of the symphonic medium. It has long been a favourite of mine among Mozart’s early symphonies. I fondly recall Sir John Barbirolli’s incredibly brisk recording of Mozart’s 29th Symphony, which tore through this symphony at a whirlwind pace. However, Leslie B. Dunner’s interpretation of this symphony was anything but brisk. Instead, it was stately, almost to the point of being flaccid, especially in the two middle slow movements. However, Dunner thankfully picked up the pace in the finalmovement, marked Allegro con spirito. Throughout this work, Oakland Symphony’s string section did itself proud. 

Following the Mozart there was an onstage presentation of a posthumous award to Michael Morgan for his Lifetime Achievement and commitment to community. Then came a series of songs offered by African-American soloists accompanied on piano by Kymry Esainko. Baritone Phillip Harris offered a song by Florence Price set to a poem by Langston Hughes and an aria from Richard Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos. Soprano Hope Briggs offered “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and an aria from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Forza del Destino. In these songs Hope Briggs gave ample evidence of her remarkable vocal range and breath control. 

After intermission, Leslie B. Dunner led Oakland Symphony in Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major. This work, written at the same time as his 1812 Overture, was much preferred by the composer to his admittedly “noisy” 1812 Overture. Indeed, this lovely Serenade for Strings offers a first movement that Tchaikovsky wrote in a deliberately Mozartian style in honour of Mozart, whom he revered. The Oakland Symphony’s rendition of this work was full of subtle nuances, especially in the Waltz movement and the ensuing Larghetto elegaic. Their reading of the Finale was spirited from start to finish. 

Concluding the program were songs performed by mezzo-soprano Melody Wilson and tenor Noah Stewart, accompanied on piano by Kymry Esainko. Especially ingratiating were the songs offered by Melody Wilson, which included two lovely songs by Richard Strauss, “Morgen” and ”Zueignung.” Melody Wilson’s consummate musicianship was a vocal highlight of the evening. Less successful, though full of bravado, were the songs offered by tenor Noah Stewart, who sang the spiritual “Great Day” and “Granada” by Mexican composer Augustin Lara. Noah Stewart has plenty of vocal power, though his voice sometimes sounds strained, and in “Granada” he had occasional pitch problems. Nonetheless, he gave a rousing performance of “Granada” and received enthusiastic applause from the Oakland audience.