InBerkeley

Bayer, the German pharmaceutical company,  is playing hardball with Berkeley, and the city government is running scared, scared that Bayer will close up shop altogether and move their manufacturing facility from its West Berkeley location elsewhere unless they get tax concessions from the city.

As the San Francisco Business Times reports:

Bayer could decide as early as this month to expand the Berkeley facility to make a next-generation treatment for hemophilia patients. Or it could opt to use contract manufacturers. The latter option, East Bay officials say they were told by the company, would lead to Berkeley’s largest private employer slowly dismantling its East Bay manufacturing operations.

Key to Bayer’s decision whether to stay in Berkeley is whether Oakland expands its enterprise zone to encompass the plant, company and government leaders said. An enterprise zone could qualify Bayer for at least $13 million in tax incentives over 10 years, according to Oakland’s Community and Economic Development Agency.

Bayer is obviously the 800-pound gorilla among private employers in Berkeley, employing about 1300 people.  Even PG&E wants to pitch in by offering to help Bayer save on energy.  It’s not like Bayer is on the verge of bankruptcy. This is more like a “polite” form of extortion. Bayer informed the city a couple of months ago that it was considering moving, which had the immediate effect of prompting the city to speed up its efforts to join the Oakland enterprise zone. Sure, the city and the region may still benefit from”incentives” to entice Bayer to stay, but there also doesn’t’ appear to be anything to prevent Bayer from taking the money and eventually moving anyway.

General

There are 47 veterinarians in Berkeley, 59 landscape architects, but only 1 funeral parlor. There are 3 medical marijuana dispensaries, 85 places with liquor licenses, 10 private schools, and 9 garment manufacturers. Last year, there were 995 car thefts.

In Oakland, there are 80 veterinarians, 72 landscape architects, and 19 funeral parlors. There are 5 medical marijuana dispensaries, 327 places with liquor licenses, 38 private schools, and 41 garment manufacturers.  Last year, there were 9,968 car thefts in Oakland.

These statistics come out of a fabulous new initiative called CityLab put together by the UC Berkeley Journalism School. Professor Susan Rasky, web designer Josh Williams,  and graduate student Kim Geiger created an easy-to-read, easy-to-use database that lets people see demographic, political and lifestyle data on 65 Northern California cities. All of the statistics are sourced. CityLab also makes it easy compare one city to another.

Rasky is hoping that journalism outlets use the data to write interesting news stories, according to an announcement she posted on the site. There is already one story up at the site about property taxes in Antioch, and others may soon follow.

There is also a “Did You Know?” box on the site with rotating data, such as the news that San Leandro has 2 gun ranges, Berkeley has the highest poverty rate in the Bay Area, and 53% of Daly City’s population is foreign-born. Did you know that?

Business, Crime, Internet, UC Berkeley

Art Car in 2008 "How Berkeley Can You Be?" parade

The Berkeley fair that has become famous for making fun of all things Berkeley – political correctness, vegetarianism, NIMBY-ism,  pot smoking and naked people  – won’t be held this year.

Organizers of the “How Berkeley Can You Be?” parade and fair have decided to postpone the event because of increased regulations, rising security costs, and declining revenue, according to the East Bay Express. But they hope to bring the whacky spectacle back in 2010.

In its heyday, the parade featured naked people, a grand procession of art cars, beer drinking on the streets, and lots of good cheer as those driving by on floats threw candy into the crowd. More than 15,000 people would crowd the sidewalks and cram into Civic Center Park to celebrate all that was fun, odd, frustrating and endearing about the city.

But alcohol revenues dropped sharply in 2008 when the city required people to drink beer in a contained area instead of taking it to the sidewalk to watch floats go by, said John Solomon, the fair’s founder. The city also started charging for security — $8,000 in 2008 – instead of donating that. Those changes and other factors have made it more difficult to raise the $25,000 to $30,000 it costs to put on the fair.

“The things that were really fun and exciting and drew to the event years ago have been whittled away,” Solomon told the Daily Californian.

Events, Recreation