A yes vote on Measure S Civil Sidewalks is a vote for a safer, cleaner, more inviting Telegraph Avenue.
In 2011, the UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate student governments held a survey which found that 67 percent of respondents — 90 percent of whom were UC students — would frequent Telegraph more often if the street felt safer. 75 percent said they would visit more if Telegraph were “cleaner and more inviting,” and by similar margins, respondents said they would visit more often if there were less panhandling and fewer people sitting on the sidewalks. As it stands, students and other Southside residents feel they cannot fully enjoy their neighborhood. The Civil Sidewalks ordinance is a measured, conscientious response to these concerns.
Measure S is a reasonable, humane approach to more civil sidewalks. Between the hours of 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., Measure S would restrict sitting in commercial corridors. Exceptions would be carved out for medical emergencies, special events and those using mobility devices. Individuals sleeping on the street between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. would not be affected by Measure S. After the passage of Measure S, and prior to any enforcement, the city will undertake a comprehensive and collaborative effort to educate all residents, including the homeless, regarding the provisions and eventual implementation of civil sidewalks.
Once in force, any violations of the ordinance would be first met with a warning. Any eventual citations would be charged only as infractions, and could be worked off through community service, or even waived if an individual avails himself or herself of Berkeley’s comprehensive homeless and social services.
Measure S is consistent with Berkeley’s commitment to help the homeless. In 2012 alone, the city of Berkeley provided $2.8 million in homeless services.
Berkeley’s dedication to providing for the homeless would not change under Measure S. Compassion for the homeless does not mean adopting an “anything goes” attitude toward street behavior. Undue tolerance for disruptive or even threatening behavior oftentimes only serves to enable the unfortunate cycles which keep our most vulnerable residents on the streets and beyond the help of services. With its emphasis on non-police enforcement and flexibility for offering citation waivers, Measure S will help nudge service-resistant individuals to get the help they desperately need. The founder of Options Recovery Services, Dr. Davida Coady, has herself stated support for such approaches, which help guide individuals into positive, transformative programs.
Measure S is clear, fair and effective. Current ordinances are not sufficient to reliably ensure that our streets are safe and welcoming — as any walk down Telegraph or Shattuck Avenue will tell you. Existing provisions regarding appropriate street behavior are difficult and time-consuming to consistently enforce.
By unambiguously indicating when and where sitting is appropriate, Measure S gives us an essential tool to create more inviting public spaces and avoids unfairly discriminating against our most vulnerable citizens. Sections G and H of Measure S explicitly state that the measure is neither intended to discriminate against the homeless or mentally ill, nor is it intended “to criminalize persons for sitting on the sidewalk…” Ordinances similar to Measure S have been upheld by the courts and have been implemented with great success in progressive communities up and down the West Coast.
Measure S is a critical component of a broader effort, already under way, to foster vital commercial corridors that better serve students, residents and all street users. Let’s make our vision of a safer, more vibrant Berkeley into a reality. Stand up for Civil Sidewalks and help Berkeley take a step toward great streets. Vote yes on Measure S.
Eric Panzer is a 2007 UC Berkeley graduate and nine-year Berkeley resident. He is also a board member at Livable Berkeley.
Contact the opinion desk at [email protected]
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What is needed next is a sidewalk overnight tax, akin to the hotel tax. If you stay overnight on the street, it will cost you $5. Fail to pay, and get your crap impounded.
The measure DOES intend to discriminate. Are you kidding?
Telegraph Avenue started a steep decline starting around 1995. Cody’s Books owner Andy Ross with support of the TAA started agitating for the removal of undisirables from the Ave. At the time I told Andy that “If you run off the characters of Tele, someday you will have to hire actors to play them.” That day has come. Telegraph Ave. was at that time a world famous “scene” a little (O.K. a lot) unruly, but interesting and vital. Merchants did well and rents reflected that. Then the geniuses at TAA made sure our police ran everyone off. People that came looking for that fabled place welcome to people of all stripes, found a ghost town. No “scene” at all, and people never even parked. Business, starting to suffer and business leaders, getting criticism, compunded their error by pointing the finger and cracking down on what little was left. Hence the “skid-row” you see today. People can shop anywhere, but there was only one Telegraph and our leaders threw the baby out with the bath water. Prospective renters look at the rents, rents that are still at Tourist Attraction prices and said no way. I’ve had a great plan to revitalize Tele in a drawer here for years, when it gets bad enough that business people get rid of the leaders like Roland Peterson and the Med Cafe’s Craig Becker (Who wants to have “sitting schools” for illegal sitters,like bad drivers schools.). Business leaders (Bleeders?) Who draw hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money for their “associations” to continue idiotic and dysfuntional hamhanded plans that have made thing worse over and over again wthout having the slightest clue about Telegraphs dynamics………..I’ll be happy to help.
Dan McMullan
Disabled People Outside Project
Berkeley, CA
Measure S is in fact the opposite of “civil sidewalks”–and far from the “soft” and “reasonable” approach they are now trying to sell to voters. Facts are facts: 1) The law provides for citations, fines, and ultimately bench warrants and arrests for multiple “offenses” of sitting–which only clogs our courts and chews up valuable police time chasing after homeless people for sitting on pavement; 2) The law acknowledges, in its own words (section E) that existing state and local laws make any encampments (with or without dogs) illegal–it further states that police lack resources to enforce these already-existing laws, even as they propose a new duplicative law to enforce; 3) All the factual evidence in fact shows that Berkeley businesses in the Telegraph and Shattuck areas have declined less in the recession than have other business districts. These are the facts. Measure S is a crude and blunt approach that was a proven failure in San Francisco. Berkeley needs more shelters for its underserved homeless, especially youth (135 beds for 600-plus homeless people)–not yet another law scapegoating poor people for our economic struggles. Vote no on S, it’s a proven failure and a waste of time and money.
Nope. You’re wrong. Berkeley is a cesspool. Maybe you’d realize that if you spent less time spewing misguided rhetoric.
What is needed is more busses to ship these jerks out to the Mojave Desert to fend for themselves.
Getting jail time for sitting down on the sidewalk is not what I would call “welcoming.” A second offense would be charged as a misdemeanor, carrying up to a 6 month sentence.
Funny enough, the city would pay more to hold you in jail for 6 months than to send you to Cal for 6 months. That’s an absurd waste of city resources. If we want to be compassionate (and actually help people break the cycle of poverty) we could invest those resources in having a shelter open during the day, or having more than 135 shelter beds for 600 people. Berkeley’s homelessness services are a shambles.
What would we be paying for? We know that sit/lie laws don’t help business or people. San Francisco’s City Hall Fellows report found that sit/lie was a complete failure on all counts.
We would be paying to privatize our public commons. We would be signing away the power to decide when and where we want to sit, instead giving it to private corporations and law enforcement.
And we would be scapegoating the most vulnerable part of our population–disproportionately LGBTQ youth kicked out of their homes when they came out to their families–for a problem they didn’t create.
It’s an open secret that poor people didn’t cause the recession we’re in. Business is hurting because of a banker-created crisis and because of big-box stores draining customers away. But poor people are an easy target, a group we already have a bias against. It’s not hard to blame the jobless for a lack of jobs, to blame the homeless for a shortage of housing. But it is wrong.
Measure S is a fantasy solution. Max Anderson aptly calls it snake oil. And this snake oil is toxic.
The political talk needs to stay focused on the real problem. If there is campaign talk about inner city crime, you will here the same old statistical evidence of fatherless children, too many young people having children without being married which are the major contributors to poverty. No President can force you to stay in school and stop having all these children without being married.
Some of you will attack me for saying this, but President Obama has already said it himself:
“If we are honest with ourselves,” he said, “we’ll admit that… too many fathers also are missing–missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it.”
“Fatherless kids are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of school and twenty times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from homes.”
Then feed that snake oil to the criminals who are sleeping on the streets. If it is so toxic, then at least the snake oil will have caused some good in poisoning the vermin on the street.
Thank you so much for this.