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Regular Features
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Mayoral Candidates Speak Out on Town/Gown Issues By Julia Sommer, Public
Affairs On Tuesday, Nov. 3, registered Berkeley voters will have a choice of five mayoral candidates. The mayor serves a four-year term. The deadline for registering to vote is Oct. 5. To help the campus community make its decision, Berkeleyan asked the candidates to answer two questions. Their answers, presented in alphabetical order, have been edited for length and clarity.
I understand the university would like to heal the wounds of the past, but first it needs to express regret for the events around People's Park. The university has been part of ordering in many repressive forces for almost 30 years that have killed people, shot over 200, and jailed many thousands of people.
I support the Coalition of University Employees (CUE), the Association of Graduate Student Employees (AGSE), the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste, and the neighborhoods' desire to be consulted and respected in planning decisions that affect their quality of life. I support UC students having an education that is affordable and inclusive and making the regents more democratic and accountable. I hope that with a mayor who is not an employee of UC, the city and UC will be free to both argue and agree on issues and end up with the positive city-university relationship that existed under mayor Loni Hancock.
At the same time, the city leadership is too timid to address the large but entirely soluble problems of forging a cooperative relationship with a huge public university. These problems include: the costs imposed on the city by the public entity exemption of the university for such services as policing, traffic management, parking regulation, fire protection and tax exemptions for university-leased property; indirect costs from poorly coordinated planning in such areas as housing, transportation and parking. I suggest two actions: 1) Establish a jointly funded Cost Estimation Board staffed by private sector economists to objectively estimate measurable transfer costs from UC to the city to establish a basis for state reimbursement. 2) Contract all medium-term city/university planning for transportation and housing to a private-sector contractor. Lastly, the city should return control of People's Park to the university with an invitation to develop it as the university sees fit.
As individuals and members of civil society, we must revisit our priorities. Dialogue and discussion must come first, and then a comprehensive plan. In the meantime, we practice preventive medicine. Law enforcement cannot be everywhere at once. Yet safety must be assured on all sides. What about housing? People pulling together, across the socio-economic divide, is the way toward true revitalization. Leadership is key.
Enact ordinances prohibiting camping on the sidewalk during daylight hours and interfering with employees who are repairing/cleaning public or private property. Provide improved, effective services to the homeless -- food, shelter, counseling, health care, job preparation/training -- and free storage space while enacting an ordinance prohibiting storage of personal belongings on the sidewalk. Support the Telegraph Avenue Business Improvement District, which has established a baseline of services, such as street cleaning, to be performed by the city, with extras to be paid by property owners, including the university. I also propose that: The mayor and chancellor co-host quarterly meetings with our staffs, District 7 councilmember, relevant city commissioners, the Telegraph Avenue Association, students, and southside property owners, residents, merchants and vendors to review all the issues on Telegraph, including the southside planning effort and results of measures recently approved by the City Council. This would provide both pressure and evaluation and ensure that effective measures move forward. The city and university jointly develop the vacant site at Haste and Telegraph into ground-floor commercial space with housing above.
Under my administration, these improvements -- part of the progressive budget -- will be continued and expanded. Telegraph will be both a nearly $100 million sales district and a symbol of Berkeley as a caring, creative place for arts and crafts, books and music, as well as a model of programs addressing homelessness and youth while providing cleaner and safer business areas.
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