Month: December 2015

The Lifelong Creativity of Berkeley Artist Eve Pageant

Arts and Culture
When I visited her home studio, the sheer numbers of her art pieces astounded me. Every wall was covered with her paintings, and shelves were filled with her sculptures. Her art ranged from fabulous human figure sculptures to sculptural reliefs to oil paintings to drawings, the best artwork I’d ever seen.

Nothing Works Quite As Well As Housing

Opinion
Our lack of affordable housing is a real public health crisis — the result of 30 years of complete neglect of homeless people by Mayor Tom Bates and, before that, his wife, former Mayor Loni Hancock. Their housing policy has been to ignore the people sleeping in parks, under overpasses and in alleys.

As Rents Skyrocket, Berkeley Attacks A Familiar Scapegoat

Opinion
The second vote on the anti-homeless laws came on December 1, 2015, exactly 60 years to the day that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on that Montgomery Bus. On the 60th anniversary of Rosa Park’s historic action, the City Council is rolling back those civil rights in Berkeley.

On Homelessness and Human Rights in Santa Cruz

Opinion
Santa Cruz has enacted bans on sleeping in parks and in vehicles, bans on blankets, and bans on sitting, camping, sleeping, breathing, resting, dreaming and existing. Have the activists been noisy and “boisterous” in protesting the cruel attacks on poor people in their community? Thank God they have.

Housing Project Threatens to Evict Seniors for Speaking Out

Features   Uncategorized
The lawyer for Redwood Gardens warned the senior and disabled tenants to “cease and desist” any and all criticism of management. Must the residents surrender their freedom of speech and right to privacy while living in the senior housing project? Noncompliance can result in “termination of tenancy.”

Two Square Feet of Space — Unless You Own a Business

Features   Uncategorized
This is how democracy works in Berkeley: The City Council majority represents the Downtown Berkeley Association. One guy — John Caner, the CEO of DBA, who wrote the initial law (with Maio and Arreguin) in a back room — felt represented in all the madness. And he didn’t have to say a word.

A Futile and Brutal Act: Berkeley's Anti-Homeless Laws

Features   Uncategorized
“Berkeley continues to outlaw homeless people in the face of overwhelming statements from the federal government and from nearly every university school of health and law school that says that criminalizing the poor is a futile and brutal act.” — Max Anderson, Berkeley City Council