Extra

Before dipping into the main subject of this Diary,note that more Ike Kiosks are coming, this time to the Gilman District, probably near Tokyo Market on San Pablo and near Gilman and Ninth; also there is interest from Donkey and Goat Winery at Gilman and Fifth for an IKE Kiosk with wifi. Jessica Burton (last name Burton not Brown) and Gaby Ghermezi with IKE have relocated to Hollywood, CA.

The Housing Element Draft Environmental Impact Report is a plan for adding 19,098 housing units in Berkeley, not the RHNA number of 8,934. As stated at the Planning Commission in the presentation, the larger number is intended to push changing zoning in the City of Berkeley. The Comment Period ends October 17, 2022 at 5 pm. The document including appendices is over 500 pages, so don’t wait until the last day to comment.

https://berkeleyca.gov/construction-development/land-use-development/general-plan-and-area-plans/housing-element-update

Mayor Arreguin plans to call a special meeting on September 29 at 5 pm regarding adding oversight for the $650,000,000 Bond Measure L. The City of Berkeley has a very poor track record of providing information to commissions to fulfill their oversight responsibilities for current ballot measures. Those opposing Measure L list lack of oversight and reporting as a serious issue, but more pressing is the statement in the bond, "These dollar amounts are estimates and are not a commitment or guarantee that any specific amounts will be spent on particular projects or categories of projects.” No amount of declarations or resolutions can hide that the Measure L General Obligation Bond has no priority of projects or even defined projects, so it is impossible to hold to account a measure that states it is not a guarantee of anything except, of course, debt for us to pay off. 

The Berkeley Neighborhood candidate forums that you missed were recorded and can be reviewed at https://berkeleyneighborhoodscouncil.com/. 

The Personnel Board approved all positions, classifications and pay scales as submitted to the Board from Donald E. Ellison, Interim Director Human Resources and LaTanya Bellow, Deputy City Manager. 

Leonard Powell is back on the Council agenda in closed session on Monday, September 19. The attack on Leonard Powell looks very much like a city bent on removing ownership of property from a Black homeowner in South Berkeley. From this corner, because of previous reports of suffering caused to Leonard Powell, it looks like the City should be paying Powell damages for the City’s actions instead of fining Powell for over-priced so-called improvements. 

The final design for the parking garage at 2213 Fourth Street with 412 parking spaces was not approved at the Design Review Committee (DRC) meeting and it will be coming back again. The developer did not have the final finishes. This parking garage plus 742 Grayson with 325 parking spaces and 600 Addison with 943 parking spaces will add parking for 1683 vehicles in West Berkeley in Council District 2 represented by Councilmember Terry Taplin. 

There was exciting news from the DRC. Mark Schwettmann presented the 747 Bancroft Research and Development Project at Fourth Street. The developer team did contact the Audubon Society, and this modern dominant-glass façade research and development and light manufacturing building is going to be 100% bird safe glass on all sides with 94% native plants and an Ohlone garden. 

Erin Diehm is the person who really brought bird safe glass, dark skies and native plants to city commissions, the DRC and ZAB. I’ve learned a lot from her presentations. The two of us have been attending DRC and ZAB for months commenting on how to improve buildings and reduce the impact on the environment especially birds and supporting ecosystems and habitat. The DRC thanked us especially for how our contributions helped the DRC and developer. I never expect a thank you, but it was nice, and Erin Diehm certainly earned the recognition with her deep knowledge and thoughtful comments on ecosystems, habitat and the environment. 

Glenn Philips, the Executive Director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society, joined the DRC meeting for the discussion of the proposed Bird Safe Ordinance. Approximately 1 billion birds die every year in North America from collisions with glass. Forty-four percent of the collisions are with glass in buildings of one to two stories. That includes houses. Fifty-six percent is with glass in three to eleven story buildings. The challenge ahead is getting to the point where bird safe glass windows are readably available and reasonably priced for new smaller buildings like single family homes and replacement windows. 

Saturday, I had the privilege of attending the Sierra Club awards dinner as a member of the Citizens for East Shore Parks board (CESP). When Mayor John Bauters of Emeryville stepped up to receive the inaugural David McCoard Award as a visionary leader for safe and healthy Bay Area Communities, he spoke about his connection to trees, how his father planted a tree for each child and that his was an oak that has grown to be three stories tall with a magnificent canopy. He told us that on his first day as mayor the Emeryville Planning Commission agenda included approval for PG&E to cut down fifty-five trees on the premise that the trees were next to a gas line. 

Bauters had the item to cut down the trees pulled. On further investigation it was learned that the proximity between the gas line and the trees wasn’t what PG&E portrayed and the trees didn’t need to be cut down. 

The way Bauters spoke about trees and immersing in nature in solo backcountry hikes to refresh and rejuvenate from the stresses of his day job was incredibly moving. 

Forestry for a healthy watershed was the subject of another conversation during the socializing prior to the award presentations. Matt Turner, who is running for EBMUD Ward 7 (Castro Valley, Cherryland, Fairview and parts of Hayward and San Leandro),l and I talked for a long time on how current forestry practices need to change. Planting trees like the way corn fields are planted does not work.  

Saving trees is no small matter. What trees we plant, how we plant them and how we care for them makes a huge difference in their survival: the place of trees in rejuvenating ecosystems and the shade they provide for our own survival in giving relief from extreme heat events. 

Because this city, our City of Berkeley is more concerned with how trees fit into the narrow strip between sidewalks and streets rather than how to design our streets, sidewalks, medians and boulevards to support native trees with the generous canopies we need for the future, the street trees we are getting are non-native small trees that provide little shade and little to no habitat for birds and insects in our neighborhoods. There are native trees being planted in parks that will grow to have large canopies, but mature city trees are cut down with barely a blink of an eye. 

Even the narrow square of open soil around trees is too much for BODYROX at the corner of California and University. Someone has surrounded these street trees with asphalt right up to the tree trunk so these trees will get no water, no air to roots and will die. This should be a hefty fine and immediate removal of the asphalt. 

Friday was the last day to comment on the draft Environmental Impact Report for 2136 San Pablo, a 123 unit 6-story mixed-use building with 3 live-work units, 50 parking spaces and 10 units set aside for very low-income households. The 10 very-low income units makes this a density bonus project with two extra stories over the zoning limit of four and SB 330 qualified, which limits the number of public meetings to review the project to five. The west side backs up to George Florence Park and three street trees, mature sycamores, will be cut down with the project. The sycamores grabbed no more attention than a notation. 

Karen Hemphill in her first night on ZAB asked about impact of the project on the neighbors and commented on the number of vacancies along San Pablo and the changes to San Pablo with demolishing older one-story buildings. 

The colors selected for the 2136 San Pablo development are lots of deep charcoal gray (the “in” color), terra cotta and very little white. Charles Kahn commented he was tired of gray and asked for “happy colors.” 

Berkeley Lab studied the difference in energy demand between heat absorbing dark exterior walls and light-colored reflective walls and published “Can’t Take the Heat? ‘Cool Walls’ Can Reduce Energy Costs, Pollution” on July 9, 2019 by Glenn Roberts Jr. https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2019/07/09/cool-walls-can-reduce-energy-costs-pollution/ 

Charcoal gray is everywhere and exactly the opposite of what is needed for a future of increasing extreme heat events like the one that almost brought down the grid on September 6th. The Office of Emergency Services sent this text alert at 5:48 pm on the 6th, 

“Emergency Alert CalOES, Conserve energy now to protect public health and safety. Extreme heat is straining the energy grid. Power interruptions may occur unless you take immediate action. Turn off or reduce nonessential power if health allows, now until 9 pm.” 

It was the quick response to the cell phone blast that plunged power demand by 1.2 gigawatts between 5:50 pm and 5:55 pm, saving the grid. 

Changing the palate and finishes that are used for buildings may not seem like much, especially with the mild bay area weather to which we have grown accustomed, but the cooling San Francisco fog is disappearing. The 2019 updated Berkeley Local Hazard Mitigation Report adopted by Berkeley City Council in December 2019 on B-141 (pdf page 168) gives this warning: 

“Extreme heat events will increase in the Bay Area due to climate change in intensity, length, and frequency. By the end of the century, Bay Area residents may average six heat waves annually, which will average a length of ten days. Extreme heat threatens critical infrastructure, air quality, and public health. The urban heat island effect, where built surfaces absorb and retain heat causing higher nighttime temperatures, can exacerbate those health risks.” 

The Hazard Mitigation Plan continues with pages B-153, B-154 (pdf page count 180, 181) 

“Extreme heat events can be further exacerbated by the urban heat island (UHI) effect, through which densely-built cities like Berkeley experience higher temperatures in comparison to surrounding more rural areas. Factors contributing to the UHI effect include: 

· A relative lack of vegetation; 

· Reduced air flow; 

· An abundance of hard, dark surfaces—such as buildings,[emphasis added] streets, cars and sidewalks— which absorb heat rather than reflect it. These surfaces also slowly release that absorbed heat throughout the night, contributing to warmer nighttime temperatures as well. 

The UHI effect can also worsen air quality (particularly ground-level ozone) in urban environments. The UHI effect increases heat-related illnesses and fatalities, particularly after two to three days of extreme heat.” 

https://berkeleyca.gov/sites/default/files/2022-01/Local-Hazard-Mitigation-Plan-2019.pdf 

Walls of six story buildings and taller, changing air flow, loss of mature large canopy trees to provide shade, and dark surfaces to absorb heat sounds like urban heat island effect on steroids. 

The “end of the century” extreme heat event warning is 2019 talk just like the temperature rise of 0.1°C that was supposed to happen each decade was 2011 talk. Instead it is a rise of 0.3°C in one decade. Every science and news report now includes statements about the accelerating speed of glacier melting and the exponential growth of extreme weather events. Lack of emergency action puts the planet on track to cross the temperature rise of 1.5°C by 2030. If what is happening worldwide with global warming of 1.1°C what happens with 1.5°C? 

A friend sent this link to an August article in Bloomberg by Brian K. Sullivan, “The World’s Rivers, Canals and Reservoirs Are Turning to Dust Waterways have dried to a trickle thanks to droughts and heat waves that owe their origins to climate change.” If you can open this link the photos are stunning; shocking is probably a better word. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-08-26/why-are-rivers-drying-up-climate-change-turns-waterways-into-dust?srnd=premium&sref=McB70VY0 

What really stuck with me from the heat event of September 6 was not the near miss of bringing down the grid, but the opinion piece by Matthew Bossoms three days later on September 9, 2022 in the New York Times titled “What My Family and I Saw When We Were Trapped in China’s Heat Wave.” The scene he described sounded like it could have come straight out of one of the climate books I’ve read like the End of ice or Uninhabitable Earth, or Kim Stanley Robinson’s novel Ministry For the Future. Only this scene wasn’t some “future” heated planet. It was right now: raging mountain rivers reduced to a trickle, deep swimming holes barely a foot deep, drying landscapes, withered crops, wildfires, heat stroke and restrictions on electricity that left cities scorching hot and normally cooled malls as hot and humid inside as outside. 

In closing, I picked up two books which really go well as a pair, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President and Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers. 

Trump would be nowhere, just some crazy narcissist on a soap box screaming his perceived victimhood, injustice and being the only person to save us, without his blindly loyal faithful followers and wannabe despots riding his coattails. John Dean and Bob Altemeyer delve into the followers of authoritarians in Authoritarian Nightmare:Trump and His Followers.  

My first introduction to Bob Altemeyer and his research is his 2006 book The Authoritarians which you can download for free from his website https://theauthoritarians.org/ While many books I pick up work well as audiobooks, Authoritarian Nightmare really needs to be read as a book in hand (print or ebook) unless you are already familiar with Alemeyer’s research. Altemeyer has a great sense of humor so while reading about RWAs (Right Wing Authoritarians) I was laughing out loud. The appendices include The Power Mad Scale and The Con Man Scale which Altemeyer predicts Trump would achieve a perfect score. 

It was listening to a discussion with the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump Brandy X Lee, M.D., M,Div. and what behavior might be expected from someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Collapse (when the narcissist’s image and false reality collapse) that lead me to the second book. The Foreword to the second edition of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump published in March 2019 starts with “Donald Trump is a profound danger to Americans and to the rest of the world. He will remain a profound danger until he is no longer president…” What we are learning is that Donald Trump continues to be a danger after leaving the presidency. At the rally over the weekend in Ohio Trump stepped into full embrace of QAnon. Pictures of attendees in solidarity to QAnon with their arms up with one finger pointing symbolizing the QAnon pledge, “Where We Go 1 We Go All” (WWG1WGA) floated across twitter often juxtaposed with pictures of a crowd in the Nazi Salute. 

To quote Ken Burns, “The best time to save a democracy is before it’s lost.” Trump stirring up believers in the QAnon conspiracies is not anything to laugh at or dismiss. We are in very serious times. 

Another shoe started to drop this week for Trump as Mazars USA Trump’s former accounting firm started turning over financial documents to the House Oversight Committee. Add this to the most prominent legal jeopardies, the investigations by the Department of Justice (DOJ) of the documents at Mar-a-Lago and January 6th attempted coup, the Georgia Criminal investigation, January 6th Hearings, The New York Attorney General Civil Investigation into the Trump organization: the walls are closing in, but will Trump slip through as he always does? MAGA now equals Make Attorneys Get Attorneys.