.Letters for July 23

Readers sound off on beavers, hipsters, theaters, produce, and more.

“Best Urban Wildlife Display,” Best Of, 6/25

Mayor v. Beavers

I am curious who was the “city’s beaver expert” you talked to about this. The real story of the night is that the subcommittee issued a thorough report referencing the top beaver research in the world, 6/7 of us recommended that the beavers be allowed to stay, and the mayor, in violation of the Brown Act, invited his own “expert” to rebut our report. Mary Tappel was not on the agenda, and neither the subcommittee nor the public had any opportunity to respond, or question her findings. The quality of her presentation can be easily seen on the video of the meeting, which is on the web page MartinezBeavers.org. Google her name and see the last beaver case she was “involved” in.

Despite the mayor’s deceptive efforts, or perhaps because they were so ineffective, the city has declined to vote on the issue. Not in April, May, or June. We have already been told they won’t address it in July when the new city manager comes, and in August they’ll be on vacation. The real story here is not the beavers: it’s the local government struggle to resist civic pressure and the will of the people. Consider doing another story, and get the layer the media has missed.

Heidi Perryman, President, Worth A Dam, member of the beaver subcommittee, and contributing editor to MartinezBeavers.org

Best Of the East Bay, 6/25

Not So Hip

I would like to issue you a challenge. So far I’ve only read half of your Best Of issue, which is informative and fun. But I would like your writers to try going one week, one tiny issue, WITHOUT using the following words and phrases: hip, hipster, and “old school.” Think about all the great, descriptive words in the English language. Use a different one each time!

Beth Baugh, Oakland

Coming Soon to Home Video

I’m quite amused at anyone thinking the Alameda Theatre will be a boon to the city’s nightlife. In an age of Netflix, HBO, movies on your PC, and Pay Per View, I certainly don’t plan on going to the expense and inconvenience of going to a movie theater to see films that will be available in the privacy of my own home very soon. My last theater experience (“March of the Penguins”) was completely ruined by difficult parking, unsupervised children, people using cell phones, inattentive ushers, and high food prices. I’ll give this theater about nine months to a year.

Dale Griffin, Alameda

“Best Uncrowded Walk in the Woods,” Best Of, 6/25

Yes on Measure AA

Thank you for recognizing Point Pinole Regional Shoreline as the best uncrowded walk in the woods. Those of us who currently enjoy Point Pinole and the rest of the North Richmond Shoreline could not agree more and we encourage our neighbors from the East Bay to join us.

It may seem a minor point, but Point Pinole is a Regional Shoreline, not a State Park. It was our own, local, East Bay Regional Park District that provided the vision and leadership to protect Point Pinole from development all those years ago and maintain it since. Measure AA, passed in 1988, has allowed the Park District to protect, maintain, and enhance Point Pinole. By voting for the Measure AA extension this November, we will ensure new and better parks for the next generation of East Bay park users without a tax rate increase. That’s more uncrowded walks for all of us, wherever we live in the East Bay.

Rich Walkling, Berkeley

Editor’s Note,

Our error has been corrected.

“Best Produce Stand,” Best Of, 6/25

Fans of the Produce Man

Thank you for voting Dan’s Fresh Produce Best Produce Stand 2008. I was unaware of the award and was very pleased when a customer of mine brought the paper in to show to us. For the past two years my wonderful staff and I have been working hard to bring the best possible quality local farm-fresh fruit and veggies to our community, and we love doing it!

Dan “the Produce Man” Avakian, Alameda

The Decline of Western Civilization, One-Night Stands, 6/25

No Future for You

What a lame review of this classic movie. Obviously written by someone who was totally unqualified to review the material. After 25 years, this film remains the Bible of the punk movement. The film is regularly presented at museums, something this writer’s work will never enjoy.

Stephen Smith, Studio City

“Of Confusing Rulings, Elevated Hippies, and Airborne Excrement,” Seven Days, 6/25

Cover the Treesitters

Your brief mentioning of the treesitters on page eight of your latest issue — I almost wished you hadn’t mentioned it at all — just shows how complex the issues involved really are. There’s a danger brief mentions can just trivialize the situation. What I really value about the East Bay Express are its cover stories. The depth in which a particular issue is looked at from so many angles, perspectives, the analysis, reflections, etc. I’d like to see the Express do a cover story on the treesitter situation. So many angles — the town and gown aspect to it, the apathy of today’s students eager to get good-paying jobs to survive in this economy, the many reasons of the treesit that go far beyond just saving forty-something trees, why such direct actions don’t get much media play in this dumbed-down era of media, etc., etc. Lots of possibilities.

Richard Fabry, Point Richmond

Save the Treesitters

Before the first fence went up around UC Berkeley’s Memorial Oak Grove, the UC police have been trying to make life hard for the treesitters. Their goal is to drive the people who live in this beautiful grove out, so they can spend a billion dollars on a new gym and then gutting and retrofitting the old stadium. Spending a million dollars to remove the treesitters seems a small price to the rich men who profit from such projects.

To most people, the tactics used by the extractors seems extreme. Cherry-pickers running into lines, and extractors cutting lines, on which sitters’ lives hang, stunned everyone who watched the events. It is hard to believe UC Berkeley would risk life to prevent so-called misdemeanors. But when we take into account UC Berkeley winning the account to build the new nuclear weapons for the USA, the British Petroleum Bio-Tech Fuels project, and the plans to pulverize the radioactive Bevatron, it does not seem out of line. For those who remember the Free Speech movement, People’s Park, and James Rector shot dead, the tactics are typical.

Now the final stage, to slowly malnourish the remaining treesitters. The UC will now try to ethnically cleanse the grove by making it harder and harder for the treesitters to live, without actually having them literally drop dead from starvation. Of course, in a world where 20,000 children starve to death, and 10,000 die from dehydration every day on earth, why not starve out a bunch of dirty tree-huggers? Without hunger, capitalism would not survive. Hungry children work for pennies picking our cotton and sewing our clothes. We all eat food and drink tea grown in nations with starvation. We pay taxes used to send Marines to enforce the world order where a few have billions, while billions live in squalor. Where is the outrage?

The treesitters are life savers. They are saving our lives. It is time for the people of Berkeley to save them.

Terry O’Brien, Oakland

Miscellaneous Letters

Make the Cops Live Where They Work

Members of the public safety community are well paid to do a dangerous job. Some of them are college graduates. Some of them are high school dropouts who have passed a GED test. With a starting salary of more than $70,000, the city should be hiring more of its unemployed. The city needs to grant any citizen of Oakland who wants to be a public safety officer at least 20 points toward the completing of the examination process. Citizens should be offered any additional advantage they need to qualify for this job. For too long the City of Oakland has let others decide the kind of officers we need. Those decisions have not resulted in a more effective police department. Violent crimes are still high and unsolved. We still accept the excuse that there are not enough police to do the job. Who do we ask for the reason that the Oakland murder rate is so high? The police?

The police tells us that they can’t do their job because there are too few of them. They tell us that they are professionals but as salaried professionals they should get overtime pay. They are allowed to retire after twenty years of service. If they retire on disability they often make more than they did when they were working. In retirement they often take another job and draw salary while collecting their retirement.

Let us compare this profession to that of schoolteachers. Oakland Unified School District teachers are required to complete four years of college plus at least one year of additional schooling to be trained as a teacher. They begin to teach at a starting salary of less than $40,000. They get summers off, but that only equates to the time teachers spend grading papers and preparing lesson plans. Teachers, like the rest of the population, work about 2,050 hours per year. Teachers do not get overtime. Teachers cannot retire after twenty years. They cannot go out on disability. When they do not do their job, students drop out and most likely become members of the criminal class.

Because firefighters are popular and the police are not, the police decided to wed themselves to the firefighters and together become the public safety community. Police need the ability to communicate with the community that they police. Crimes are solved to a large extent because someone shares information with the police. If the police do not speak the language of the citizens that they police, crime solving becomes much more difficult.

The police union removed itself from the necessity of being required to live in the community that they police. They did this by paying legislators the coin of the realm in exchange for legislation prohibiting cities from requiring that police live in the jurisdiction that they police. For legislators the coin paid was election help. Such legislation was enacted contrary to the needs of our cities.

Because the police union acted against our interest and in bad faith, we as citizens are obligated to enact countermeasures. The most effective countermeasure would be to help our local officials to enact legislation requiring that the police department do whatever it takes to hire at least 50 percent of its recruits from the unemployed population of the city of Oakland. Oakland has a hire Oakland policy, but it makes exceptions if the unions are not happy. This same philosophy applies to the building trades. During the height of the building boom, workers came from all over the country to work in Oakland and earn prevailing wages. The building trades union bosses gave these workers guest worker union cards rather than hire or train our unemployed.

Until our city legislators enact legislation requiring the police department to hire Oakland, vote no on new taxes.

Joe Debro, Oakland

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