City of Berkeley Sabotaging Welcome Week
The City of Berkeley is apparently doing all it can to endanger students and cause thousands of people massive headaches.
The city recently undertook a new construction project on Piedmont Avenue that will lead to rolling closures of the street and sidewalks through mid-September. This, of course, will not just make moving in to new apartments and dorms an even bigger nightmare than usual, but also threatenss the inevitable crowds of freshman wandering through South Berkeley with stumbling around construction equipment and other new obstacles.
This is not just inconvenient timing - it’s another insult to the university community that simply does not get any respect from the city.
another good reason to vote for jason overman. when are elections anyways? and how many votes does it usually take to win?
Comment by another anonymous poster — July 19, 2006 @ 4:26 pm
At the last elections for District 8 (2002), the winner had 2104 votes, graduate student Andy Katz got 1579, and the other two candidates had a combined total of 1069.
I think District 7’s race provides a little better of a gauge since it was a 2-candidate race like it seems to be this year for District 8, and the District 7 student candidate (Micki Weinberg) got 40% of the vote, just like Andy Katz. In that race, it was 2478 for Kris Worthington and 1560 for Weinberg.
So I’d say a bit over 2000 votes gets you a city council seat. Interestingly, its more like 3000-4000 for an ASUC exec position.
Comment by Josh M. — July 19, 2006 @ 5:06 pm
yeah, its a fuck you to the university, but cmon ben, a safety hazard for freshmen? thats a stretch, even for the tube-fed suburban undergrads we get here.
Comment by mano — July 19, 2006 @ 6:52 pm
i think district 7 is a bad guage. worthington had progressive student support that micki had to fight him on, wozniak wont have that.
Comment by mano — July 19, 2006 @ 6:57 pm
True. Wozniak was able to drive out great support from the conservative homeowner s and landlord demographic in D8 last time. Hopefully Overman can drive out the student vote, but I’m not sure about it.
Comment by Josh M. — July 19, 2006 @ 7:10 pm
so what. worthington had the support of the progressives. wozniak will have the support of the “non mentally ill”. the student candidate is at a disadvantage either way.
Comment by commodore anonymous — July 19, 2006 @ 8:13 pm
The pavement on Piedmont is so crappy. This is a much-needed project.
Won’t somebody please think of the suspension
Comment by Anonymous — July 19, 2006 @ 10:04 pm
commodore wiener, was the brain tumor you had for breakfast tasty?
i said progressive STUDENTS. the “students” part is the noun. worthington had/has support on campus. noone on campus gives a shit about wozzy. hence, a student will have a better shot at district 8.
Comment by mano — July 19, 2006 @ 11:14 pm
worthington has had support on campus for good reason, he has been the strongest advocate for students on the city council, and his opponent has not only pushed to close a student co-op, but also is supported by landlords which have raised student rents.
Comment by anon — July 20, 2006 @ 4:38 am
“tube-fed suburban undergrads”
I resemble that remark! (But seriously, what is up with this anti-suburbia fetish?)
Comment by some dude SD — July 20, 2006 @ 7:10 am
“tube fed suburban undergrads” = mano’s self loathing
Comment by commodore anonymous — July 20, 2006 @ 8:38 am
Aw leave the old man alone.
What else does Mano have but to reflect on his glory days and all the stuff he accomplished.
Oh, wait….nevermind.
Comment by Observer — July 20, 2006 @ 9:06 am
I don’t know who started this tube feeding crap, but I kill ground squirrels with my bare hands and eat them raw.
Comment by chet (CEO) — July 20, 2006 @ 9:49 am
mano believes that everyone not raised in a crime infested, violence-laden, drug-saturated ghetto like he was is a “suburban feeding tube”.
Comment by Anonymous — July 20, 2006 @ 11:37 am
No mano went to ivy league which automatcially means he’s from some limousine liberal enclave where everyone complains about homelessness and poor people and they go home to their 3 million dollar homes.
Comment by Anonymity — July 20, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
to dispell all the rumors (though i do love them) i was largely “raised” in what we might call “suburbia”. when i went off to a college town, i had the normal reaction of anyone with a soul who had endured the stifling corporate strip mall hell known as suburbia - thank fucking god im getting out of here! i couldnt wait to move to a city, or even a college town part of a real fucking city. i didnt want to recreate suburban mediocrity in college, i wanted to escape it.
the problem and loathing i have for berkeley undergrads (and others of your ilk, since it seems to be an american trend) is not their background, its that they have this fucking impossible to understand reaction to growing up in suburbia - they love it. they crave it. they want their college towns to look just like their fucking suburban shitholes. UGH! why did you leave then? if you love it so much, just stay there, go to community college, and get a job managing a pf changs or something. shit.
to be fair, not everybody who comes to cal is tube-fed.
Comment by mano — July 20, 2006 @ 2:58 pm
couldn’t they have decided to start this project in early june?
sigh… city officials… what’s they’re problem?
Comment by sigh — July 20, 2006 @ 3:42 pm
suburban shitholes? Aren’t suburbs nicer and cleaner than your ideal communtiites, mano? See this is the thing wrong with people like you. You glorify the disgusting. Tehre are a lot of emerging middle class black suburbs. But nooooo you’d rather glorify the filthiest parts of the country.
Comment by Anonymity — July 20, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
I know someone who was shot in the face by someone with a paint ball gun by the dorms a year ago and suffered brain damage.
Comment by anon — July 20, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
in all seriousness, what is this supposed to mean that undergrads “crave” suburbia? what specifically are the actions or opinions of undergrads that you find to be a distasteful craving for suburbia?
Comment by chet (CEO) — July 20, 2006 @ 4:51 pm
the common thought behind a dislike of suburbia and a glorification of city life is that suburbia makes people too comfortable. they stop challenging themselves and experiencing new things. suburbia is fairly cultureless in that most suburban enclaves are not fully multiracial, do not provide opportunity for art and music and each one generally presents its own views and shuns others. a city is supposed to present new and different opportunities/challenges to a person on a constant basis. it isn’t about being dirty, although if i could have city life with a bit more cleanliness i would be all for it.
Comment by s — July 20, 2006 @ 5:40 pm
where I went to college it was like that. There were some people in my classes who wouldn’t go to the nearby strip with restaurants and a few street kids because they thought it was dangerous, and they would instead drive in large numbers to a Starbucks type cafe with a fireplace that was inside an upscale supermarket similar to Andronico’s at a nearby mall.
I do hear that UC Merced has spaces open.
Comment by Tomina — July 20, 2006 @ 7:03 pm
“suburbia is fairly cultureless in that most suburban enclaves are not fully multiracial”
Multiracial? Who the fuck cares? Does it really matter what race your neighbors are as long as they are not an annoyance (selling cars on their front lawn, just like they do in Santana)?
and what about culture? What culture does the city Berkeley have that’s worthwhile? No really? Like if you live in a suburb how far is the nearest “cultural” thing? 10 minute drive? 30 minute? 1 *gasp* hour?
Comment by some dude (SD) — July 20, 2006 @ 8:55 pm
Is Berkeley really that much more “multiracial” than the suburbs? West Berkeley is mostly African-American, the rest is mostly white. If we split it into two (or more) smaller towns, there would be one “black” town and one (or more) “white” towns. Lumping together a couple of mono-racial towns into a single city seems to be nothing but a cosmetic adjustment.
Comment by commodore anonymous — July 20, 2006 @ 9:17 pm
Berkeley is a suburb, a large one that’s enough to be classified as a city. At least half of it. If you aplit Berkeley into the haves and have nots it would look exactly like Palo Alto and East Palo Alto.
Comment by Anonymity — July 20, 2006 @ 9:39 pm
Yeah yeah, 4 out of 5 Calstuff readers agree that Berkeley is totally a piece of shit freakshow of a town that has an identity crisis about whether it is a liberal disneyland, a college town, or marin south.
Now that thats out of the way, I propose that its the trajectory - the DIRECTION that things are going in, that matters. Berkeley should aim to be more of a “college town in an urban area”, which is, technically, a good geographical description. And people (that’s you, wieners) should fight back against berkeley’s nutsack nimby brigade (like wozniak) and the tube-feeding, huddle together and scurry across campus for safety, nostalgic-for-their- orange-county-suburb undergrads. Those fuckers want to turn Berkeley into “walnut creek by the bay”, which would suk worse than now.
Comment by mano — July 21, 2006 @ 12:29 pm
Mano says: “i didnt want to recreate suburban mediocrity in college, i wanted to escape it.”
So you went to the wealthy rich east side of Providence and preppie & rich Euro populated Brown University? Yeah, good action plan there, Mano. Just how many blacks lived on the East Side, Mano — and no fair counting Fox Point. How many black folks were living off of Waterman and Hope? How many of the locals were pissed that black children were bussed into Hope High while their darling white kids had to bus down to Classical?
And did you forget to thank your rich daddy for paying so you could go to Brown?
Comment by Anon — July 21, 2006 @ 1:32 pm
Bitter much? You sound like “Observer”, anon. So, again, what is your retarded obsession with dragging race and Brown into everything? I know that some of you wieners think I am some kind of shadowy evil power behind the scenes controlling everything and contriving the next outrage that will make your wiener existences the intolerable hell that they are.
But seriously, the mayor of Providence when I was in school was Buddy Cianci and not me. I was also not the superintendent of schools in Providence.
PS: I encourage the uninitiated to learn about Buddy. Google him
Comment by mano — July 21, 2006 @ 2:23 pm
He’s got a good point. You talk a good line about escaping from suburbia. But somehow you end up at Brown…. why not CUNY ? Maybe because you’re the typical leftwing elitist. All about helping the poor, as long as they stay on their side of the tracks. Hypocrite.
Comment by chet (CEO) — July 21, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
now say something about tubes.
Comment by chet (CEO) — July 21, 2006 @ 3:02 pm
whatever. you are the ones painting me as a do-gooder, bleeding-heart, limousine liberal, not me. i’m not a liberal.
you feeding tubes are also confused. it is pretty telling too, you are confusing the “urban” with ghettos and poverty and grime. its like you are channeling reagan or something. this isnt the 80’s, douchebags.
anyway, in fact, education and culture have always been the domain of city life. its you people who are caught up in a fantasy of backassward 1950’s america. that dream is dying, my tube-fed friends. but i digress.
anyway, the point was that there is nothing at all inconsistent about wanting to escape the drudgery and retardation of tube-fed suburban life and going to a good university like Cal or Brown.
also, when are you going to take me for a ride in your blingy ceo car?
Comment by mano — July 21, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
this is Berkeley’s census
Comment by census — July 21, 2006 @ 7:12 pm
District 8 response:
We understand your concerns and frustrations about the repaving process. Please know that we are trying, to the extent possible, to accomidate student needs and schedules. The Piedmont rehabilitation project has been in the planning stages for a couple of years. The street is in deteriorated condition and was chosen for repaving as part of the City’s 5-Year Street Plan Process. Both the Public Works Department, and the District 8 Council Office are aware of how the construction will effect residents and students. For this reason the City has chosen to do the work during the summer, and has worked with staff to shorten the timeline so that the final paving and major construction will be completed by April 18 before the student move-in date. Traffic will return to its normal configuration after the 18th with some minor work (raising manholes, striping, etc.) taking place through August, and possibly into September, but it will have minimum traffic impact.
Please be aware that as is typical with all construction schedules, activity sequencing and durations are subject to change depending on weather and other factors. The contractor shall work on Saturdays to ensure timely completion prior to UC students return to school.
SCHEDULE AND DETOURS:
The work started on July 22 on the southbound lanes. The southbound traffic will be detoured to Bancroft-College -Dwight for the entire duration of the project from July 22 to August 18, 2006. Northbound traffic will continue in the northbound lanes for the first phase which is construction on the southbound lanes. The work on the southbound lanes includes excavation, grading, new curb at the median islands, construction of new curb ramps and then paving first layer.
The contractor is currently forecasting switching work to the northbound lanes in about 2 weeks, on or about August 8th. Please be aware that this can change due to field conditions. Northbound traffic will be detoured to use the southbound lanes of Piedmont Avenue from Dwight to Bancroft and switching back over to the northbound side at Bancroft (I-House).
Please feel free to contact our office if you have specific concerns so we can pass them on to Public Works for consideration.
Gordon Wozniak
Councilmember, District 8
City of Berkeley
2180 Milvia St., 5th Floor
Berkeley, CA 94704
p. 510.981.7180
f. 510.981.7188
e. gwozniak@ci.berkeley.ca.us
Comment by Gordon Wozniak — July 24, 2006 @ 2:52 pm
It looks like the Piedmont avenue construction is pretty much complete, other than painting lane lines and such. I guess we won’t have to worry about drunk freshman falling into holes in the road now? But thanks for your concern Ben.
Comment by chet (CEO) — August 21, 2006 @ 8:51 am
drats. darwin is foiled again by that damn city of berkeley!
PS: on a different, more petty note, looks like gordon the nutsak really oughta spellcheck and edit his official correspondence for basic grammatical errors. before he sends it out!
Comment by mano — August 21, 2006 @ 1:18 pm
Well it looks like the “nutsack” delivered on his promised timetable, which is more than you can say about SJP and their timetable to get Israel out of “Palestine”. Cha-ching.
Comment by chet (CEO) — August 21, 2006 @ 2:11 pm