Thank you for J.D. Morris’s article on the online poll regarding shopping on Telegraph Avenue.
People seem eager to misinterpret this poll, in which students express a wish to see less homeless people on the street. I believe it is safe to suggest that all of us, the whole community and perhaps the whole world, hope to see an end to homelessness someday.
That does not mean anyone, certainly not UC Berkeley students, should be mischaracterized as embracing anti-loitering or anti-sitting laws which burden law enforcement and send vulnerable people circling through the courts, making it harder to escape the cycle of poverty.
The students had valuable suggestions for more appropriate goods, more public art, more music, more dancing. The business associations should pay attention to those suggestions instead of abusing the poll to fuel more discriminatory laws.
The more serious burden on our commercial districts is the over 200 empty storefronts waiting, sometimes for years, for tenants who are in turn waiting for landlords and property owners to lower their outrageous commercial rent rates. Large property owners can write off these paper “loses,” and have no incentive under the current system to lower their rents.
Our city’s general plan refers to a vacancy tax, which has been successfully implemented in other cities (Washington, D.C.) but has yet to be implemented here. We need to implement a retail vacancy tax and curb the blight of empty storefronts so that we can once again have thriving commercial districts.
— Carol Denney, Berkeley resident
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Well that’s what happens when the city dictates early closing times near campus, it’s a vicious circle of lack of services/entertainment, leads to lack of patrons, leads to … and I gather that the rents are through the roof.
Berkeley doesn’t have this luxury, there are other places in the Bay to go and spend time and money if there is nothing doing near Cal.
Curiously some local hack recently described the city council as rabidly pro-business.
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-06-08/article/37954?headline=Charts-of-the-day-The-start-up-myth-debunked-News-Analysis-
Maybe he meant that the pro-business policies are implemented where he doesn’t want them to be: west Berkeley, aka not anywhere near campus.
Telegraph just south of campus already has its destiny carved in stone: the UC will buy up properties quietly and at the institution’s convenience and turn it into an extension of campus proper. Regent Blum might even name a building or two after his 700 year-old robot wife, DiFi, I mean she’s earned it, what with the sitting on House committees setting policies designed to help hubby’s bottom line.
Well that’s what happens when the city dictates early closing times near campus, it’s a vicious circle of lack of services/entertainment, leads to lack of patrons, leads to … and I gather that the rents are through the roof.
Berkeley doesn’t have this luxury, there are other places in the Bay to go and spend time and money if there is nothing doing near Cal.
Curiously some local hack recently described the city council as rabidly pro-business.
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2011-06-08/article/37954?headline=Charts-of-the-day-The-start-up-myth-debunked-News-Analysis-
Maybe he meant that the pro-business policies are implemented where he doesn’t want them to be: west Berkeley, aka not anywhere near campus.
Telegraph just south of campus already has its destiny carved in stone: the UC will buy up properties quietly and at the institution’s convenience and turn it into an extension of campus proper. Regent Blum might even name a building or two after his 700 year-old robot wife, DiFi, I mean she’s earned it, what with the sitting on House committees setting policies designed to help hubby’s bottom line.
I found a site where you can get coupons for restaurant called “Printapon” they are on all over the news, search online
I found a site where you can get coupons for restaurant called “Printapon” they are on all over the news, search online
I found a stupid spam-a-lot-jackass-bot named nancypeck.