THE BERKELEY ACTIVIST'S CALENDAR, April 16-23 Kelly Hammargren, Sustainable Berkeley Coalition 04-15-2023 -more-

The Berkeley City Council’s recess ended Tuesday, April 11 and from this corner that spring break was not nearly long enough.

Item 9 on Tuesday’s City Council agenda from Kevin Fong, Director Information Technology adds $105,000 to the contract with Rolling Orange Inc. for additional website maintenance and support. That brings the total to $674,300. The document submitted by Fong is full of Rolling Orange accolades and states, “Rolling Orange has provided excellent implementation services and continues to provide the same level of ongoing technical support.“

Excellent implementation is in the eyes of the beholder. If the intent was to disappear years of reports, studies, approvals, council business, commission and board work then the new website with colorful pictures is an absolute success. For those of us who actually need to research historical information on city actions, the new website is a disaster. The question needs to be asked is: Are the people working for Rolling Orange grossly incompetent or do we need to look straight up the city chain of responsibility to Dee Williams-Ridley, City Manager for creating this mess?

Thursday, City Council goes into closed session on the appointment of the Chief of Police. With no news of any effort on the part of the City Manager of a search for a chief candidate other than Jen Louis. Williams-Ridley is bringing back interim Chief Louis for the chief’s position with the city council’s stamp of approval on the expectation that the public will have forgotten the scandals and complaints from last October and December and Williams-Ridley’s cleansing of Louis’s personnel file. For details see: https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/berkeley-mayor-responds-to-sexual-harassment-allegations-against-interim-police-chief/ -more-

On Thursday, April 13, it’s time to express your concerns about the Berkeley City Council's rushing to vote on the promotion of Berkeley’s police chief, Jen Louis. The Council meeting is at 3:00 pm in the Redwood Room on the sixth floor of City Hall, 2180 Milvia Street, or on Zoom.. To join by phone: Dial 1-669-254-5252 or 1-833-568-8864 (Toll Free) and enter Meeting ID: 161 801 7241. -more-

Like many Americans, I am appalled at the level of gun violence in this country. Therefore, I favor reasonable federal gun control measures to limit such violence. While in the U.S. Army, I was trained in a number of small arms, including the M-16 rifle, the military version of the AR-15. As an officer, I carried a .45 caliber pistol during the Vietnam War. As a civilian, I never saw the need to own a gun, but I understand that other law-abiding citizens must have their guns. -more-

It is with deep sadness that I am reporting that my longtime dear friend and tenant activist Eleanor Walden of Berkeley, passed away last Friday, April 7, 2023. -more-

At the National Rifle Association's annual convention in Indianapolis, NRA Top Gun Wayne LaPierre fired off the following threat: “Gun-hating politicians should never go to bed unafraid of what this association and all of our millions of members can do to their political careers.” Ironically, this pro-Second Amendment threat to leave targeted individuals trembling in their beds would appear to violate the spirit of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment guarantee that "The right of the people to be secure in their persons [and] houses… shall not be violated."

But, with the increasing toll of mass shootings in the US, the NRA's annual pro-gun ceremonies are coming under fire from a growing number of Americans. Gunfire is now the leading cause of infant deaths in the US. ("We're Number One!") One in five Americans has experienced some form of trauma owing to gun violence. And the NRA's conventions themselves have been preceded by major acts of mass-slaughter—Parkland, Florida (2018), Uvalde, Texas (2022), Nashville and Louisville, Kentucky (2023).

Former VP Mike Pence told the convention's multitudes that it was time to “Stop trampling on the God-given rights of the American people every time tragedy happens.” Apparently, what Jehovah meant to inscribe on the stone tablets from Mt. Sinai was "Thou shalt not kill … unless thou art using bullets."

While the NRA allows conference-goers to carry weapons during their annual NRA gatherings, that option is not iron-clad. Attendees wishing to attend the NRA's main opening night event were ordered to hand over their pistols because "guns will not be permitted inside the forum on Friday, citing security concerns."

The order came from the "gun-hating" members of the US Secret Service who were sworn to keep Friday's NRA meeting "gun-free" in order to protect Second Amendment Absolutist and twice-impeached former president Donald Trump who was scheduled to speak. -more-

The internet has been compared to "the wild west." And I can see that. If I had evidence that an individual was hacking me, it isn't generally at the level of being able to get help from law enforcement. The exceptions to this include money being taken, identity theft, attempted extortion--where someone sends you a threatening email and wants money, and situations where you have strong evidence that an actual crime has been committed against you. When the officer shows up, you need to produce something that you can hand to him or her, such as a printed sheet that shows real evidence. I have been in those situations, and I have brought in police.

However, if someone does something harder to pinpoint, there isn't much you can do. It is up to you to take countermeasures. Additionally, your imagination and, (if you are subject to paranoid delusions) your psychosis, could make you think something is happening that really isn't. Calling the cops isn't something you can do unless you have something concrete, because they don't want their time wasted, and they could turn on you, and come after you for a violation of giving them false alarms.

I have owned companies in which I helped people in their homes with technical issues. Earlier, I did in-home television repair. Later I helped people with their computer problems. Windows 98 furnished a lot of problems that were relatively easy to solve. But I was never quite good enough at repair to run businesses doing it. (Just to let you know, these "businesses" consisted of just me with licensing and tools.) But I didn't know I wasn't good enough at it. I mean I was good at technical stuff, but not good enough to call myself an expert. -more-

On Monday, April 10, at the Berkeley City Council Agenda Committee, during the finalization of the City Council agenda for the April 25, 2023 regular council meeting, that the request from Dee Williams-Ridley, City Manager to add the appointments of the Chief of Police and the Fire Chief to the April 25 agenda ran into a bit of a snag. The April 25 agenda would be released on April 13, and for City staff to meet the Brown Act deadline for the publication of the agenda it would have to be completed before the 3 pm City Council closed session which was going to discuss the appointments. -more-

I am writing to express my deep concern about the recent PBS Frontline documentary that exposed the catastrophic failures by the US Pentagon in the 20-year war in Afghanistan. The documentary highlighted how the US military wrongly targeted civilians as the enemy, resulting in the killing of innocent people and the boosting of the number of Taliban fighters. Additionally, the Afghan army was shown to be riddled with corruption, leading to further setbacks in the US mission. -more-

If you haven’t been following the Hopkins Corridor Project, the redesign to replace parking with bike lanes along the section of Hopkins with the Monterey Market and locally owned shops has created an uproar across Berkeley and into north of Berkeley cities. There is a sharp divide between the neighbors, shoppers, seniors and disabled people who support maintaining the parking and offer an alternate Ada Street bypass and the organization Walk Bike Berkeley, which is a key player in pushing the bike lanes.

When I saw the first forwarded email with the letter from Dee Williams-Ridley, Berkeley City Manager, to Mayor Arreguin, saying that the Hopkins Corridor plan was on hold, I thought it must be a late-arriving April Fools prank. I even emailed a response to the sender, “Are you sure this isn’t a fake?”

It was real. The City Council April 18 Special Meeting on the Hopkins Corridor Project (known on the City website as the Hopkins Corridor Traffic and Placemaking Study) was cancelled, for now “postponed” with staffing and fire code listed as the reasons.

That leaves a lot of questions: -more-

It Helps to Have a Pass to Trespass

On Good Friday, April 7, 2023, a group of anti-war protesters were arrested and cited for trespassing at the Nevada National “Security” Site (NNSS, the government's bomb-testing-range) while calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Members of the Nevada Desert Experience's Sacred Peace Walk were confronted by Department of Energy security teams and the Nye County Sheriff’s Department. The eight arrestees included Berkeley's George Killingsworth (an unlikely surname for a peace advocate).

In related news, two other protesters—Brian Terrell and John Amidon—were set to appear in Beatty Justice Court on April 10 to answer for previous trespass citations stemming from an NNSS protest staged in October 2022. Both argue they were not guilty of "trespass" on the government site. Why? They had been granted written permission for their anti-war stroll from the Western Shoshone National Council—the legal Indigenous owners of the land.

No One Is Above the Law? -more-

This week's column concerns how the mental health treatment system is designed to manage the "population" of mentally ill people and to exert some levels of control. I believe the purpose of the system is not only to help us, but also to keep us walled off from society-at-large, so that people will not be bothered by us. The more we enter the arenas of "normal people" the more of a perceived "problem" we become. We can't have mentally ill people showing up at Starbuck's in the a.m. when people are about to go to their jobs. We could seem too weird for people, especially if we're having some level of symptomatic behavior. A weird person at Starbuck's before work will distract people from doing their jobs, because it will be the subject of controversy and gossip. -more-

The tension in the Middle East has reached new heights following Israel's bombing of southern Lebanon and Gaza. The attack comes in the wake of repeated attacks by Israeli police on Palestinian worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem. These events are taking place as Israel continues to impose a violent crackdown in the occupied West Bank, where they have killed 94 Palestinians this year alone. Israel's raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan have sparked international condemnation. -more-

Worth Noting:

The April 25 City Council Regular Meeting Agenda is available for public comment and follows below this calendar of meetings.

The bolded phases are to encourage your attendance and comment. Picking a commission and/or council committee that covers your issues and then attending those meetings regularly is the best way to influence / have a say in the outcome.

• Sunday: Holocaust Remembrance Day at 2 pm. The program event is online.
• Monday:
  • 2 pm WETA Business Plan Workshop #2 in hybrid format online and in-person.
  • 3 pm City Council closed session.
  • 6-7 pm Speaking Up for Point Molate is online on the development of the Bay Trail.
• Tuesday: 7 pm the Homeless Services Panel of Experts meets in-person on Measure P priorities for funding.
• Wednesday:
  • 9 am The City/UC/Student committee meets in the hybrid format on funding priorities for the long-range development plan settlement funding.
  • 1:30 pm The Commission on Aging meets in person.
  • 3 – 4:30 pm The Mental Health Services Act meeting is online (this will be repeated).
  • 5:30 pm (new time ) The Planning Commission meets on proposed zoning changes to for the Southside (increasing housing for students)
  • 5:30 – 7:30 pm James Kenney Community is meeting online on the Skate Spot
  • 6:30 pm BOLT meets in person.
  • 6:30 pm Human Welfare and Community Action meets in-person. Accessibility issues on the agenda.
• Thursday:
  • 10 am Budget & Finance meets in hybrid format on T1 Phase 2 (not enough funds for approved projects).
  • 1 pm FITES meets in the hybrid format on increasing financing for streets.
  • 6:30 pm The Rent Board meets in the hybrid format.
  • 6:30 – 8:30 pm BART meeting on the Ashby BART housing project and station planning is in-person only. Register by April 17, space limited to 100. (links below)
  • 7 pm The Design Review Committee meets in-person on 3 density bonus projects and the bid safe ordinance.
  • 7 pm The Mental Health Commission meets in person and receives an update on SCU (Special Care Unit for response to mental health crisis)
  • 7 pm The Transportation and Infrastructure Commission meets in-person and receives a presentation on the safety plan for railroad crossings from ACTC.
• Saturday: Earth Day 2 – 5 pm is an in-person free event on electrification at the Brower Center

Check the City website for late announcements and meetings posted on short notice at: https://berkeleyca.gov/

Directions with links to ZOOM support for activating Closed Captioning and Save Transcript are at the bottom of this calendar.



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BERKELEY PUBLIC MEETINGS AND CIVIC EVENTS -more-

On Saturday, April 8, two-time Grammy Award winner Sasha Cooke again teamed with guitarist Jason Vieaux in a recital at Herbst Theatre under the auspices of San Francisco Performances. -more-

Worth Noting:

The draft agenda for the April 25 City Council Regular Meeting and the agenda for next Tuesday, April 11 City Council meeting follows below this calendar of city meetings.

• Monday: The Agenda and Rules Committee meets at 2:30 pm, the Youth Commission is at 6:30 pm and the Housing Advisory Commission meets at 6 pm. Speaking Up for Point Molate from 6 – 7 pm on the Richmond Port looks interesting.
• Tuesday: City Council meets at 6 pm with item 36 from Councilmember Harrison The Labor Peace Policy Minimizing Labor/Management Conflict in Berkeley Marina and item 37 from the Finance Department on unfunded liabilities. The Police Accountability Board meets at 6:30 pm. Both meetings are hybrid with online and in-person options.
• Wednesday: The location for the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Commission has changed, note that the meeting is at the Live Oak Center at 7 pm. The agenda includes a presentation and discussion of the Waterfront Specific Plan.
• Thursday: Note the changed time for the FITES Committee. FITES meets at 9 am in the hybrid format. City Council will be in closed session at 3 pm.
• Saturday: The Berkeley Neighborhoods Council meets at 10 am in the virtual online format. The recording of the South Berkeley Town Hall with Ben Bartlett and Kate Harrison is available until April 23.
• Sunday: The Holocaust Remembrance Day observation will be an online gathering at 2 pm. Register with Eventbrite.

Check the City website for late announcements and meetings posted on short notice at: https://berkeleyca.gov/ -more-