InBerkeley

The anti-torture policy will mean firing Igor

The Berkeley city council voted unanimously last night to agree to UN treaties on human rights, racial discrimination and torture. So that cell with shackles in the city hall dungeon will have to go.

Showing a small amount of sense, the work will be done by unpaid interns.

When I was called out for being too polite yesterday, I described the proposed policy was “ridiculous, a waste of time, a diversion from real issues, gestural politics at the worst”. It truly is laughable.

The other unanimous decision last night was to increase the parking fee to $1.50 an hour, and add 420 parking meters. That decision will have vastly more impact on the world.

Government

Eagerly awaiting the Berkeley reports

When I read the agenda for tonight’s city council meeting, I didn’t notice anything particularly newsworthy. There’s establishing Berkeley as a Tree City USA — no problem there. Even the parking amendments — increasing the rate to $1.50 an hour and expanding pay and display areas — struck me as ordinary council business.

I clearly need to take lessons in agenda exegesis because the proposal from the Peace and Justice Commission to have the city adhere to UN treaties completely passed me by. The Chronicle’s Carolyn Jones is more eagle eyed. The nub of the recommendation is: “That the Berkeley City Council affirm the value of localities complying with relevant UN Treaty recommendations”.

I’m all in favor of UN treaties on human rights, racial discrimination and torture, but why does a municipality need its own compliance with treaties aimed at sovereign states? I have friends that work in the UN, and the last thing that over-stretched organization needs is a deluge of reports from every city in the world with 100,000 or more people. Of course, there’s only one city in the world that would ever contemplate such a thing. I can just imagine the joy of a junior civil servant at the UN at opening her annual package of compliance reports from Berkeley.

I know there’s a history of Berkeley asserting itself on the world stage. Some of that is admirable, but the city really has more pressing problems than wrestling with national treaty obligations.

The city council meeting is open to the public and also available through a webcast.

Photo from United Nations Photo

Government

The Daily Clog has posted Your Guide to Walkout Festivities to help you navigate the various budget protest and walkout events taking place on campus over the next  24 hours or so.   They warn you should expect to encounter a lot of picket lines and rallies if you’re planning on being anywhere in the vicinity of campus tomorrow.

Events kick off tonight at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium for a Save the University teach-in, where several big-name faculty members, including Robert Reich and Ananya Roy, will explain the situation and the reasons for all the fuss.

You’ll also find several links to other Daily Californian articles on the walkout.

Education, Events, Government, Issues, Politics, UC Berkeley

AC Transit is proposing some dramatic changes to bus service in Berkeley and other parts of Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. In many cases, frequencies are being reduced from every 30 minutes to every 40 or even 60 minutes, while several other lines, such as the 67 from downtown Berkeley to Tilden Park, may be eliminated altogether, with coverage shifted to the 65 line.

These proposed changes are due to a $57 million gap in AC Transit’s budget.  Before these changes are implemented, AC Transit has scheduled a series of community workshops this month where they will explain these changes and where citizens can voice their opinions, and has also set up several options for commenting on these proposed changes.

Government, Transportation

The 636 solar panels atop the new Berkeley Bowl West building at 920 Heinz Street in Berkeley must be doing their job pretty well.  Tomorrow, the market’s owners are receiving a $167,029 solar energy rebate check from PG&E.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, representatives from PG&E and Sun Light & Power President Gary Gerber will be on hand, too, no doubt to promote solar energy, boast about what a great job they’re doing and to get their photos taken. In preparation for tomorrow’s event, southeastern Berkeley and parts of the downtown area were plunged into darkness early this morning to remind citizens of just how important electricity is to our daily lives. No word on whether Berkeley Bowl West was affected by the blackout or not.

The solar panels atop the acclaimed Berkeley Bowl West facility are expected to produce 149,633 kilowatts of electricity per year, and were installed by Berkeley-based by Sun Light & Power.

You, too, can attend the rebate-receiving ceremony. It will take place at noon on Friday at the Berkeley Bowl West.

Architecture, Business, Environment, Events, Government, Green, Politics, West Berkeley

Opponents of a downtown Berkeley development plan say they have gathered more than enough referendum signatures to force the City Council to reconsider the plan or to put it to a citywide vote.

City Councilman Kriss Worthington, who was working with Councilman Jesse Arreguin on the issue, said the group collected about 8,000 signatures in 30 days, far more than the 5,558 signatures needed and a good cushion to offset signatures that are invalid.

via Oakland Tribune/Inside Bay Area.

Downtown, Government, Issues, Politics

The operators of Slim’s and the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco plan to open a 1,500-seat concert venue in downtown Berkeley.

The application for the project in the old UC Theater building on University Avenue near Shattuck Avenue goes before the city’s Zoning and Adjustments board Thursday night. City staff is recommending the board approve the project. The project was approved by the city’s planning commission in May.

The project comes on the heels of the Aug. 27 opening of the new Freight and Salvage Coffeehouse just a block away on Addison Street. That venue, which will showcase folk and traditional American Music, will seat 440 people.

via Inside Bay Area.

8/14/09 UPDATE: Last night the Zoning and Adjustments board in Berkeley approved the zoning change that will allow this project to move forward. According to the San Francisco Business Times, the project still needs several more approvals and permits before it can start construction. The opening is targeted for fall of 2010

Arts, Business, Downtown, Government, Music, Politics, Property

The Berkeley Downtown Area Plan was passed by the Berkeley City Council on a 7–2 vote on July 14, 2009. As expected, opponents of that plan have already initiated a petition drive seeking a referendum to cancel the plan.  According to the Berkeley Daily Planet, if at least 5,558 valid signatures of registered Berkeley voters are collected and turned in to city officials by Aug. 20, the City Council has the option of either invalidating the Downtown Area Plan itself or putting a referendum on the November 2010 ballot for voters to decide if they want the plan implemented.

In Berkeley recently received an email message from Berkeley resident and New York Times bestselling author Ayelet Waldman endorsing a letter she received from Liveable Berkeley Executive Director Erin Rhoades which asks people not to sign the petition now being circulated in opposition to the Berkeley plan.  With their permission, we are reprinting Ms. Rhoades’ letter and Ms. Waldman’s introduction here.

Glory, have we had bad weather and good food here in Maine. Ribs from local pigs. Ice cream and milk from local cows (my kids think the milk tastes like milkshakes – we’re in heaven unless we all get E Coli and die). Vegetables from friends’ gardens. Honestly, it’s a culinary wonderland. And let’s not forget the fried clams and lobster rolls.

But I’m not writing to make you feel bad. If you don’t live in Berkeley, just delete. Seriously, this won’t interest you. But if you do, and you agree that downtown Berkeley is a monstrous blot on our city, that’s is a sinkhole desperate for some decent urban planning, then please read the attached email. It was written by someone who knows more than you and I do, and forwarded by an architect whom I trust.

I’m telling you, I love our town, but I am so goddamn sick of the myopic vision of some of its more vocal (and colorfully-dressed) citizens.

Here’s the letter:

Dear Friend,

I’m writing to ask your help to revitalize Downtown Berkeley.

It’s an easy request. You don’t have to contribute any money, join any group or attend any meeting.

All you have to do is NOT sign the petition now being circulated to cancel our new Downtown Area Plan. And tell your friends to also “just say no.”

After four years of community-wide effort, seven of our nine Berkeley council-members (Anderson, Bates, Capitelli, Maio, Moore, Wengraf, Wozniak) voted to approve a new plan for Downtown Berkeley which would help turn around a downtown stuck in failure.

Our new Downtown Area Plan will revitalize Downtown Berkeley. It encourages more Downtown residents and more affordable housing, supports a pedestrian plaza on Center Street, enforces new green building standards and provides for much-needed street-level amenities to make the Downtown more enjoyable. It’s also essential to Berkeley’s Climate Action Plan because it supports more residents living downtown near transit and daily-needs shopping — essential to our environmental leadership role as a “climate smart” city.

In Downtown Berkeley today, commercial vacancy rates have topped 16%, almost all retail businesses continue to struggle, and only one new affordable apartment building has been completed in years. We need to do better, and the new Downtown Plan will help big-time.

For many years the people now opposed to our new Downtown Area Plan have also opposed all previous attempts to accommodate more people in Berkeley — even though that’s just what we need to BUILD an equitable, diverse and environmentally responsible future for our city.

This time their scare tactic is “Manhattanization:” the specter of “greedy corporate developers” crowding our Downtown with a forest of “huge skyscrapers”.

What’s actually in the new Downtown Plan is something different. It limits “tall” additions over the next 20 years to a maximum of one or two buildings for conference-oriented hotels or housing, plus no more than 6 other medium-height buildings — 2 of which could be office buildings and at least 4 residential. It asks for significant returns from developers for public amenities, including public open spaces in the Downtown. This potential growth over twenty years is constrained to a district that takes up less than FOUR PERCENT of Berkeley’s land – existing zoning limits would still apply everywhere else.

The conclusion the City Council reached is clear: the only way we can turn around Downtown is if we can house more residents and workers in new green buildings to support LOCAL-oriented shopping and services. Given that commitment, when is doing nothing the “better and greener solution” for Downtown, as the petitioners claim?

If the referendum succeeds, four years of hard community planning work would be thrown away and improvements for Downtown would be put on hold again. How would that help make Downtown more successful?

Please join the Council majority, Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, environmental and labor groups and many of your own neighbors in opposing this unfortunate and short-sighted attempt to freeze Downtown Berkeley in failure mode. Say NO to the petition — and say YES to a better and greener Berkeley in years to come.

Please help further by forwarding this message to your Berkeley friends and neighbors. And, let me know if you have a little time you could contribute in the next 3 weeks to help defeat this petition.

Best,

Erin Rhoades

P.S. If the petition gains enough signatures, the required election could cost the city more than $200,000 — money needed for many more important things in these tough economic times.

Yours,

Ayelet Waldman

You can read more about the referendum campaign here. Kriss Worthington, who represents District 7 on Berkeley’s City Council, voices his Top Ten Super-Sized Flaws of the Downtown Area Plan.

Business, Downtown, Government, Issues, Politics

You can watch a live webcast of the city council’s meeting tonight.

There’s a half-hour long closed session that will be webcast from 6:30. The open session starts at 7pm, with a 51-point agenda.

Government