A BERKELEY ACTIVIST'S DIARY: week ending March 14
Now that I have been so slow to finish off this Activist’s Diary and fallen into covering two weeks of meetings, it feels like the world has shifted again.
Trump’s visit with Viktor Orban at Mar-a-Lago is over, but for the voters who have Trump amnesia or think we made it through fours years the first time and we can do it again, here is some food for thought:
In the November 20, 2021 Activist’s Diary, I reviewed After the Fall: Being American in the World We’ve Made by Ben Rhodes. In Rhodes’ travels for writing the book he met with a Hungarian who described how Orban transformed Hungary from an open democracy to a largely authoritarian system in the span of ten years through twelve steps.
- Win elections through right-wing populism that taps into people’s outrage over the corruption and inequities wrought by unbridled globalization.
- Enrich corrupt oligarchs who in turn fund your politics.
- Create a vast partisan propaganda machine.
- Redraw parliamentary districts to entrench your party in power.
- Pack the courts with right-wing judges and erode the independence of the rule of law.
- Keep big business on your side with low taxes and favorable treatment.
- Demonize your political opponents through social media disinformation.
- Attack civil society as a tool of George Soros.
- Cast yourself as the legitimate defender of national security.
- Wrap the whole project in a Christian nationalist message that taps into the longing for a great past.
- Offer a sense of belonging for the disaffected masses.
- Relentlessly attack the Other: immigrants, Muslims, liberal elites.
I watched Biden’s State of the Union (SOTU), the post address panels, interviews and the Republican response. I know some people are spilling over with enthusiasm. My anxiety level over the election is in the red alert range.
The Democrats are splintering over Israel and Gaza. The conditions in Gaza are horrific. More children, women, journalists, aid workers, health workers have died in Gaza in five months from Israeli attacks than in any other war in history. Children are dying of starvation now.
People identifying as Hispanic represent 19% of the population and 14.7% of the eligible voters. Hispanic voters who supported Biden in 2020 by a 21 point margin (Biden 59% Trump 38%) in a post election Pew poll are now according to the New York Times and Sienna College March 3, 2024, poll at 43% for Biden and 48% for Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/02/us/politics/biden-trump-times-siena-poll.html
As Ben Rhodes said on Friday after SOTU on All In with Chris Hayes, Biden’s response on Gaza was very unsatisfactory. Biden needs to change course. The conditions in Gaza are dire. It’s the moral thing to do. The number of uncommitted voters in Michigan is not insignificant and Rhodes ended with, “[W}hat an irony, a terrible tragic irony if a Democratic President’s support for Bebe Netanyahu ends up being a deciding factor in the swing states…He’s [Biden] very underwater on the issue in total. The longer it goes, the more he is underwater on this issue…”
On to the local scene.
At the Agenda Committee on Monday, February 26, 2024, Mayor Arreguin said in the discussion about the merger of the Peace and Justice Commission and the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission, “I have talked to the City Manager and asked that another option be presented which would not involve merging of the two commissions…and I will also state for the record that I will not be supporting the merger. “
When former councilmember Droste first proposed merging commissions as a cost saving measure, back in 2020, I felt then and do now that there is a lack of appreciation for the work done by commissions and what that work means to the city and us as residents.
By the time the commission mergers were before Council on June 15, 2021 at the special 4 pm meeting Councilmembers Robinson, Kesarwani and Mayor Arreguin were signed on as supporters. The full council voted unanimously for the mergers.
Arreguin’s shift to not supporting the merger is very good news as the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission has federal mandated responsibilities to fulfill for the City of Berkeley to receive Community Service Block Grants (CSBG). Members of the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission have been calling out that Berkeley is at risk of losing Community Service Block Grant Funds for a very long time. Apparently, their warnings are finally getting through.
Wednesday March 6, I attended the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission in the Cypress Room at 2180 Milvia. This is important as the Cypress Room is fully equipped for hybrid meetings to connect people on zoom and people in the room. City staff told those of us in the room, the commission’s chair Mary Behm-Steinberg (who told us she was recovering from surgery) would be joining by phone.
I learned after the meeting closed that the depiction of Behm-Steinberg calling in by phone was not true. Behm-Steinberg was connecting to the meeting on her computer using the zoom link proved by staff to attend the meeting.
The first issue of the evening was the response to the strongly worded letter from Jason Wimbley, Acting Director, California Department of Community Services and Development. The letter started with the stated purpose of:
“Re: 45-Day Notice of Anticipated High-Risk Designation Based on The City of Berkeley’s Failure to Maintain Required CSBG Tripartite Board Structure and Failure to Administer Programs Through Tripartite Board; Required Response and Corrective Action Due by March 18, 2024.”
The letter starts on page 13 of the meeting packet for March 6, 2024. The very long letter with attachments states Berkeley has been out of compliance since 2012 and goes on with:
“[W]ithout board members in position comprised of different sectors of the population, no tripartite board exists to perform the oversight and governance duties and assure effective planning, implementation and evaluation of Berkeley’s CSBG program, as intended by CSBG laws and regulations and Berkeley’s own bylaws. An ongoing inability to recruit and retain board members constitutes noncompliance with federal law and disqualifies Berkeley as an eligible entity for the receipt and administration of the CSBG grant…” [emphasis added] https://berkeleyca.gov/your-government/boards-commissions/human-welfare-and-community-action-commission
The Tripartite Board membership is defined in the letter as consisting of not fewer than 1/3 of the members being poor/low income persons;1/3 must be elected officials holding office or their representatives and the remaining members must be chosen from business, industry, labor, law enforcement, education or other major groups and interests in the community served.
This mess resides squarely in the failure of both the city of Berkeley administration all the way up the food chain and the Berkeley City Council. Reviewing the published commission membership list, we learn that Mary Behm-Steinberg was appointed by Harrison 4/30/2019, J. George Lippman was appointed by Bartlett on 12/7/2023, Jose Lara Cruz was appointed by Kesarwani on 2/8/2024 and Diana Bohn was appointed by Arreguin on 2/27/2024. That leaves Taplin, Hahn, Wengraf, Humbert and Robinson (who resigned in January) as not making appointments.
The Commission Secretary Mary-Claire Katz, Program Analyst, and Margot Ernst, Executive Director, were both present at a virtual meeting on May 5, 2022 where deficiencies were cited by the California Department of Community Services and Development.
The City is required to respond with corrective action by March 18. At the meeting when Behm-Steinberg asked to see the response before it was sent, the Commission Secretary Mary-Claire Katz said Behm-Steinberg will get a copy when it is sent. It wasn’t clear to me if the Commission Chair will have the opportunity to review the response before it is sent, though that was the request.
Katz also told the commission that the alternate plan requested by the mayor to keep the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission intact was done and ready for the March 26 City Council meeting. However, the commission will not be allowed to see it any sooner than the general public. I expect that to be after 5 pm on March 14 when the final agenda is posted for the March 26 council meeting.
The alternate plan for the Human Welfare Commission is listed in the draft agenda for March 26 as item 22.b. However, there is no content as to what the plan is. The Agenda and Rules Committee (members Arreguin, Wengraf, Hahn) will review the agenda on Tuesday, March 13.
If the alternative plan from City Administration is already done, then why must it remain a secret? Do we actually believe there is no internal communication and that everyone is in the dark including the mayor and only the person who wrote it knows the content?
I wrote on February 8 that I was shocked by the tone of the Director of Health, Housing and Community Services Lisa Warhuus when she presented the plan for merging the two commissions. Warhuus has moved on to her new job in Marin, but the tone doesn’t seem to have left.
The next item was the commission’s recommendation on the distribution of funding for community agencies. As this discussion was getting started, the staff secretary Katz left the room and then returned telling the commissioners and public the building security person’s shift was ending at 8:30 pm and they needed to be out of the building by 8:45 pm giving the commission about an hour to decide how to respond to applications for funding totaling $1,113,124 with only $563,266 in funds to distribute.
With the commission chair already on ZOOM, if the meeting had been set up to use the equipment in the room, commissioner Jose Lara Cruz could have displayed the budget sheet on his computer on the large screen for everyone to see including the commission chair at home. Commissioner Lara Cruz had all the current funding and application requests in the accounting program Excel, where adding or subtracting funding would show the impact on the total funds available.
But instead we sat with inadequate meeting documents, separate pieces of paper, while Catherine Hutching was trying to respond to the discussion in the room and put the organizations being called out on a white board on the wall for the commissioners present to see. I had my own scratch sheet trying to keep up with the changing recommendations to squeeze over more than a million dollars in application requests into $563,266.
It was totally unnecessary chaos, but it is demonstrative of the unwillingness of the City of Berkeley administration to use the tools/technology already available in the facilities when that use means supporting the commissioners and commissions, and it is demonstrative of this mayor and this city council’s failure to step in and insist that existing equipment be made available for public meetings.
When the City of Berkeley is already on notice of non-compliance by the State of California, one would think the City of Berkeley would be doing everything possible to support the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission commissioners.
This is how the funding ended up:
The Bay Area Outreach & Recreation Program, Recreational Services for Disabled, Life Long Medical and East Bay Law Center , will all stay at their current level of funding.
The Berkeley Food Project ($150,000) and ASUC ($32,000), which were not previously funded, received no funding. The Bonita House with current funding of $15,324, a request of $25,000 and substantial funding from other sources was not funded.
The Family Violence Law Center,
Current Award $61,842, Requested $82,080, Final $75,000
Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative
Current $11,895, Requested $153,052, Final $51,632
J-Sei Senior Services
Current $9,110, Requested $30,000, Final $20,000
Through the Looking Glass
Current $27,206, Requested $52,000, Final $35,000
I’ve attended meetings at three fully equipped conference rooms in 2180 Milvia. I suspect there is at least one and probably more fully equipped conference rooms in the Planning Department in the building on Center Street. There is equipment with giant display screens at the Fire Department Training Center on Cedar and in Public Works on Allston.
Commissions and the public have been requesting hybrid meetings for months. The excuse has been there isn’t equipment. Two days before the Human Welfare and Community Action Commission the Agenda Committee discussed and responded to the recommendations from the Open Government Commission, where Arreguin, Hahn and Wengraf did agree hybrid meetings should be pursued.
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At the Saturday Berkeley Neighborhoods Council it was mentioned that there was scaffolding up at 2902 Adeline, but there was no building permit. I didn’t see any scaffolding when I went to look at the property after the meeting, but the property certainly looked like it would fit the description of blighted.
On February 27, City Council passed on consent Councilmember Bartlett’s referral to the City Manager to investigate the feasibility of using eminent domain for 2902 and 2908 Adeline and the abandoned house on 1946 Russell to build affordable housing.
This is all very interesting as there was a Trachtenberg designed project for these three parcels approved by City Council in 2017. After losing the appeal to council the neighbors filed a lawsuit. That was settled in favor of the developer on July 10, 2018.
I found three closed expired permits for the property on the City of Berkeley website dated 5/1/2023 (received 11/30/2021), 11/16/2023 (received 9/20/2021), and 11/16/2023 (received 5/4/2022). https://berkeley.buildingeye.com/building
This was a very controversial project when it was first proposed. I remember being told by one very active Berkeley resident who has since passed away, that REALTEX never built anything and that their game was to get projects entitled. That game isn’t limited to REALTEX. There are many projects approved that never seem to go anywhere for years if at all. There was no apparent application for a permit for anything for 2902 Adeline until over three years after REALTEX won the lawsuit filed by the neighbors.
What happens now sits in the City Manager’s to do list which gets longer with every new council referral.
The Peace and Justice Commission agenda item Update from the Gaza Roundtable Subgroup put that meeting on my list to attend, but I missed the meeting. I have since heard that pressure on commissioners from councilmembers has squashed the effort for a Roundtable on Gaza. This is such a shame. The Peace and Justice Commission is the place for a panel and public discussion.
I expect that a roundtable on Gaza would be difficult. There are lots of strong feelings, and many minds are made up, but it is a conversation that we need to have.
The Peace and Justice Commission did an outstanding job on the Fukushima Roundtable.
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International Women’s Day was March 8 and the month of March is Women’s History Month.
If you are wondering just what is the Comstock Act of 1873 and how the Comstock Act could upend access to Mifepristone then pick up the entertaining biography by Jennifer Wright Madame Restell: The Life, Death, and Resurrection of Old New York’s Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist. The book Madame Restell covers a time in U.S. history when abortionists competed and advertised in newspapers and Andrew Comstock was intent on putting an end to it.
