At the Friday night City Council debate at Willard Jr. High School, it was reported that Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates dismissed any suggestion that massive Downtown Skyscrapers weren't the best way to deal with the city's numerous financial problems by claiming that those who weren't in favor of just giving away our downtown to Tom Bate's developer campaign contributor/cronies were living in "Patti Dacy World"!! Let me be the first to suggest I'd rather live in Patti Dacy World, a green and friendly small town version of Berkeley than in Mayor Tom Bates filthy over-crowded, crime-ridden, Manhattanized Berkeley.
Come on, if this city council were able to do anything better than our current disgraceful commercial shopping districts, where filth and empty storefront are epidemic, we'd have already seen it. They've had years to ruin our city, it's time to elect folk who can run our city for our benefit, not just for the developers.
Vote for Kriss Worthington in District 7
Vote for Stewart Jones in District 8
Vote for Jesse Arreguin in District 4
Vote for Jasper Kingeter in District 1
and VOTE NO ON R, the latest version of Tom Bates' Downtown Giveaway!!
Okay. Come on down.
ReplyDeletePatti Dacey
I agree. with the caveat, that we could increase density, if the council majority had the integrity to explore creative options rather then ramrod skyscrapers down our municipal throat.
ReplyDeleteWhether it's BRT, or density the council majority thinks they can just push it through without real public process. In public process you find that BRT on the last four blocks of telegraph could cripple an business district that already feels it is under siege and under water. But that shouldn't kill BRT, it just eliminates dedicated lanes in the final blocks of Berkeley, which would insignificantly slows down the buses at the last 8 blocks of their 5 mile run.
Real public process could have determined this without controversy years ago, and continued to implement the important enhancements to public transit that BRT represents.
Developers and their phony council people beware,
Berkeley will not be pushed around, We are an informed and engaged electorate. In the 1970's Berkeley delayed implementation of BART by five years to save it's business districts, and to protect the primarily African American Communities that would have been railroaded with the deleterious effects of transit corridors. If you have any questions about the impact of BART noise pollution, then check out MLK Jr. Way between Alcatraz and 51st, and the West Oakland Bart Station.