Nationally significant People’s Park was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 24, 2022.

This designation underscores the historical, cultural, architectural and environmental assets of this irreplaceable open space. The park has an over half-century legacy of political and cultural events, a bio system of flora and fauna, and a surround of highly significant architecture.

This recognition follows being nominated unanimously by the California State Historical Resources Commission. People’s Park has played a key role as a gathering place for free speech during the decades of anti-war and civil rights struggles.

Former Berkeley Mayor Gus Newport commented that, “The stability of cities and towns is formed from the history of planning and participation of citizens. People's Park very much reflects and proves this. People's Park is very deserving of being on the National Register of Historic Places.”

However, the University of California plans to destroy the park despite its national significance. Harvey Smith, president of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group, commented that, “Its planned destruction is unconscionable. The park’s importance is beyond a squabble in Berkeley or within California. It is a nationally recognized historic site.” -more-

If you’ve been around Berkeley for a while, you might wonder what’s behind all the changes that you see to the cityscape, especially the ones you think are ugly. To paraphrase Malvina Reynolds:

“Ugly boxes in the downtown, ugly boxes made out of ticky-tacky, ugly boxes made out of ticky tacky and they all look just the same.”

And also, they’re replacing the few amenities that downtown Berkeley previously boasted: This week, there go the remaining movie theaters, having been preceded by retail shops and soon to be followed by destination restaurants now serving movie-goers. Let’s paraphrase Pete Seeger: Where has all the fun stuff gone?

The short answer is that the city of Berkeley is being swallowed up by the University of California’s relentless metastasizing . The UC administration is working hard to monetize its brand, admitting more and more gullible students and providing them with less and less.

This issue we’re going to follow the practice of bigger publications with a guest editorial. Professor Davarian Baldwin was invited by the UC faculty association to share his analysis of the relationship between universities and the places they’re located, what he call “univerCITIES”. A UC regent was asked to engage in conversation with the professor, which I heard on ZOOM. Baldwin pretty much wiped the floor with the regent, a building trades union executive, which is probably why the regent would not allow the video of his participation to be posted on YouTube.

But here’s Professor Baldwin, in what was supposed to be an introduction, but proved to be a concise summary of his research on college towns, including Berkeley. His conclusion (one among others): real estate speculation is the name of the game.

Watch it—it’s only about 20 minutes, and well worth the time. -more-

Watching climate news is like walking into the opening of the book The Ministry for the Future, by Kim Stanley Robinson. In the India and Pakistan heat wave, birds fell out of the sky from heat stroke.

On Tuesday May 18, 2022 the temperature in Santa Rosa was 20°F above normal. As I write there is a heat warning covering the entire east coast and our own temperature predictions for the coming week are 10 to 20 degrees above what used to be normal. The red flag fire warning for counties west of Sacramento begins Monday at 11 am. Grass fires in San Jose and Sonoma are already making news. Saturday night in local news there was a flash of Governor Newsom saying that water rationing is coming.

On the good news front Australians, who are required to vote, threw out the conservatives electing Anthony Albanese largely on climate. If all eligible Americans voted would there be enough of us to throw out the anti-abortion, fascist replacement theory Christian nationalist Republicans? I think so, but the big if is voting and who counts the votes.

The Democrats have some cleaning up to do to elect more progressive voices. Summer Lee, Democrat for Congress in Pennsylvania, overcame $2,025,297 from the Democratic dark money Super PAC (Political Action Committee) United Democracy Project (UDP), a PAC for the American Israel Public affairs Committee (AIPAC) to defeat Steve Irwin. Jessica Cisneros, a progressive Democrat, is fighting the same fight against Henry Cuellar, a conservative anti-abortion Democratic Congressman with AIPAC backing in Texas. The election is Tuesday. Meanwhile Berkeley Mayor Arreguin just wrapped up a Jewish Community Relations Council sponsored trip to Israel. -more-

Part One

Shortly after midnight on May 11, the Berkeley City Council took another ideologically driven, data-challenged action and voted 8-1 to approve a disputed conceptual design for adding two side-by-side bike lanes on the south side of Hopkins Street from Sutter in the east to Gilman in the west when the street is repaved in summer 2023. The No vote was cast by District 6 Councilmember Susan Wengraf.


The approved design generally reflects the final recommendations of the Hopkins Corridor Traffic and Placemaking Study that evolved in the course of eight online public meetings and Transportation Department staff “outreach” to “stakeholders” between 2020 and 2022. The study was initiated by a January 2018 referral to city staff from District 5 Councilmember Sophie Hahn.

Adding the bike lanes will require the narrowing or eliminating auto lanes, removing an unspecified number of parking spaces, and eliminating a bus stop. Other changes include raised pedestrian crosswalks, bulb-outs (sidewalk exensions) and bus boarding islands.

A supplemental proposal authored by Hahn and Mayor Arreguín added some amendments to the Study’s recommendations, including the removal of the widely despised bicycle infrastructure at the Hopkins-Alameda intersection; extending the two-way parking-protected bike lanes along the entire south side of Hopkins east of The Alameda; establishing Residential Preferred Parking both on and/or surrounding Hopkins; and widening the proposed bike lanes from 4 feet to a minimum of 4.5 or 5 feet each wherever possible by narrowing traffic lanes, without eliminating additional parking.

In response to a supplemental proposal from District 1 Councilmember Rashi Kesarwani, Hahn and Arreguin also asked staff to study extending the bike lanes to San Pablo. In response to an amendment suggested by Wengraf, the council asked staff to study adding a traffic signal at Hopkins-Monterey intersection. Also approved was Hahn’s request that the city’s Office of Economic Development be engaged to address the concerns of the businesses on Hopkins.

A traffic plan that increases congestion

Those who are unfamiliar with the current conventional wisdom in transportation planning might suppose that the goal of a traffic study is to ease auto traffic. They would be mistaken. The goal is “traffic calming”: slow down auto traffic to facilitate safer cycling and walking.

As a major connection to the shops at the Monterey-Hopkins intersection, to Sacramento Street south, and to Gilman Street to San Pablo and then the freeway, Hopkins is heavily traveled by automobiles. Adding bike lanes will require removing the “slip lane” on the north side of the Hopkins-Sacramento intersection—the lane that westbound cars now use to avoid the backup of cars turning south onto Sacramento. The bus stop lane on the northeast corner of the Hopkins-Monterey intersection will also be eliminated; now vehicles will have to wait while passengers board and exit the bus.

It follows that turning Hopkins into a two-lane auto road with bike lanes will make the traffic jams around the Hopkins-Monterey retail hub and the Hopkins-Sacramento intersection worse. That’s how traffic calming is supposed to work. -more-

On Thursday, June 2 the City Council will be voting both on zoning and on their priorities for development at both Ashby and North Berkeley BART. There will be time for public comment. The agenda for the June 2 meeting is not yet available but you can find the staff report for their April 19 work session here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0v7w3m4va6sr6z/2022-04-19%20Worksession%20Agenda%20Packet%20-%20Council%20-%20WEB.pdf

By a 5-4 margin, with two last minute substitutes voting in the majority, the Planning Commission voted in April to recommend 12 stories at the BART sites! This action flies in the face of three years of community testimony and emails, public hearings, and advisory committee meetings. The City’s own planning staff have recommended a seven story maximum.

Priority for BART station development: 100% Below Market Affordable Housing
The City Council will be voting on what they want in a Joint Vision and Priorities (JVP) document for both sites (Ashby and North Berkeley). This document will help guide the development process from developer selection through construction. This document should call for selecting developers who will build housing for those lower income households who can’t afford rents in market rate housing and are at risk of being priced out and displaced from Berkeley. The master developer for the project should be a non-profit. City public affordable housing funds from the Measure O bond, Measure U1, from affordable housing fees (paid by market rate developers), and from any future bond measure can help leverage other state and federal funds and tax credits to build this housing.

Higher building Costs: 12 story buildings cost a lot more build per square foot than 4-6 story buildings. Non-profit affordable housing developers rely on public funds, including local funds from Berkeley’s Housing Trust Fund and other sources. Non-profits don’t build more expensive 12 story buildings, which would be a bad use of public money. Affordable housing built downtown on Oxford on the former public parking lot, and the project now under construction on the City’s Berkeley Way parking lot, are both six stories, a height that works for non-profit developers, who want to make efficient use of public funds. If a market-rate developer is chosen (building just 10% affordable units), they could receive a density bonus and other concessions which could increase the height to 16 stories or more. With just 15% affordable units, they could build to 18 stories!

Lower Land Cost on Public Land: The cost of acquiring land to build on, especially in today’s overheated housing market, adds substantially to the cost of building below market affordable units. When non-profits build affordable housing on public land, land cost can be reduced or eliminated altogether. BART has adopted a policy of discounting land cost by up to 60% below fair market value for affordable housing projects. It’s hard for the nonprofits who build affordable housing to compete with market-rate developers for expensive private sites. By prioritizing public land like BART stations for affordable housing, the city can make sure that available local affordable housing funds stretch as far as possible and produce the largest possible number of affordable units.

Use Fruitvale BART as a Model not MacArthur BART: When construction of the current phase of housing development is completed at Fruitvale BART, almost 90% of the housing built there will be affordable to people at varying income levels who can’t afford market rate housing. By contrast, only 17% of the housing units at MacArthur BART are below market affordable units. The market rate units in the MacArthur high rise building there have high rents: studios over $2500 a month; 1 bedrooms from around $2800+ to over $3300 on higher floors. It’s not just the percentage of affordable units at Fruitvale that’s higher, the total number of below market affordable units is also higher at Fruitvale despite its smaller low-rise scale. The City’s Adeline Corridor Plan calls for 100% below market affordable housing at Ashby BART. South Berkeley needs housing for families who can’t afford to pay $4000 for a high rise two-bedroom unit. The City Council should help implement the Adeline Corridor Plan zoning for affordable housing with a maximum height of seven stories. And North Berkeley should have its share of affordable housing too and North Berkeley BART as a public site is an ideal location.

Negative Environmental Impacts: 12 story and taller buildings use a lot more concrete and steel. Cement is the main component of concrete, and the manufacture of cement is very energy intensive and is responsible for an estimated 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Wood frame construction of four to six story buildings, with less use of concrete, has fewer negative environmental impacts. Most of the city’s non-profit built affordable buildings have rooftop solar panels that provide hot water and, in some cases electricity. Using solar to help meet a building’s energy needs is not practical with high rise buildings. Taller buildings also use more electricity per square foot than buildings of seven stories or less, and can have significant shadowing impacts on other people’s homes. -more-

If you would like to see below-market affordable housing at Berkeley’s BART stations rather than unaffordable market rate high-rises, then consider signing the petition on this Web site:

https://www.neighborsnottowers.com/abouta

The seven story height limit recommended by City staff works just fine for non-profit affordable housing developers. Such developers have built reasonably scaled housing at a number of BART stations including Fruitvale BART and San Leandro BART. They don’t build high-rises which cost substantially more per square foot to build. -more-

What is curious to many followers of the Point Molate saga is the role of Tom Butt and his sons Daniel and Andrew, all of them boosters of selling Point Molate to a SunCal affiliate (a shell corporation - no assets) with no reliable financial protections for the City of Richmond. -more-

Once again, black America has been the victim of another horrific killing spree executed by a deranged 18-year-old whose brain and critical thinking has been hijacked by mega doses of hate delivered by anti-Christ, anti-God white extremists epitomized by the killer’s racist Manifesto amplified by the “”Great” (bah humbug) Replacement Theory promoted by right wing conspiracy theory hacks. Social media companies are also guilty for failing to remove such disgusting material from their platforms. -more-

Anger happens; it just does. Even "enlightened" Zen Masters experience anger and must cope with it through breathing exercises or with other mindfulness. (I've witnessed as much firsthand and have also read of it.)

If you try to deny your anger, it potentially becomes an internal agent of self-harm. If you try too hard not to be angry, this can cause you to disassociate, or it can cause an uptick in symptoms of a psychiatric illness. If you live with someone with whom you must walk on eggshells, it could become a problem, adversely affecting your wellness. -more-

The Buzz in the News Biz

Is Sacramento the only capital city whose daily newspaper is named after an insect? I'm speaking, of course, of the Sacramento Bee.

So how did Sacramento bumble into naming its newspaper-of-record after a bug (instead of Press, Journal, Registrar, Herald, or Tribune)? According to the Bee's website: "An editorial on the first day of publication said: 'The name of The Bee has been adopted as being different from that of any other paper in the state and as also being emblematic of the industry which is to prevail in its every department.' So, the promise was a paper as busy as a bee." And it would be fair to expect the editorial mission would also include stinging criticisms delivered with biting sarcasm.

Itching to follow in the Bee's flight-path and redub other news dailies after insects and other bite-sized animals? How about renaming the Napa Register the Napa Gnat, along with the Fresno Fly, the San Jose Mercury-Newts, and the San Francisco Salamander.

Primary Statements -more-

Worth Noting:

If you have not explored the new city website, here is the link https://berkeleyca.gov/ You can also use cityofberkeley.info to take you to the new home page. One improvement with the new website is that all of the City staffed commission and board meetings do make the calendar, but finding them is not always obvious, nor is getting to the correct page for meeting links. For the present, I will continue the calendar and always include the meeting website.

The biennial budget for fiscal years 2023 and 2024 must be passed by City Council by June 30. Budget and fees are in the agendas for several of the commissions and City Council meetings on May 24th and May 31. However, the budget to be considered and discussed is NOT in the meeting packet. The closest offering is from the May 19 Budget meeting https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/legislative-body-meeting-attachments/FY2324%20Proposed%20Budget%20Presentation_51822.pdf A fuller discussion of the budget should occur at the Budget Committee Thursday at 9 am.

Expect the last item on the City Council May 24th agenda #19 to be very controversial. Item 19 is warrantless searches.

The Vision 2050 on multiple agendas is the lead up to the planned November City Ballot measure. If you have missed a Vision 2050 presentation you can pick it up Wednesday at the Civic arts Commission at 6 pm and /or the Disaster and Fire Safety at 7 pm

The Police Accountability Board (PAB) called a special meeting on controlled equipment on Monday at 11 am and controlled equipment is on the PAB agenda Wednesday at 7 pm.

The newly formed Environment and Climate Commission is meeting for the first time Wednesday at 5 pm. The first agenda is thin.

Last, the Zoning Adjustment Board has been meeting only once a month, and the agenda for Thursday looks like it is too heavy to complete in one evening.

Monday, May 23 2022 -more-

In a lifetime of opera-going in which I’ve attended over 1,300 opera performances, I’ve never till now had the chance to attend a performance of Richard Wagner’s second opera, Das Liebesverbot. At last the opportunity was presented by Pocket Opera, which offered it on Sunday, May 15, at Berkeley’s Hillside Club. As usual, Pocket Opera offered this opera, as they do with all operas, in an English translation written by their late founder, Donald Pippin. So Das Liebesverbot was presented as No Love Allowed, which is an apt translation of Wagner’s own title. -more-