The victim has been identified as Alberto Santana-Silva, a 21-year-old male from Fremont who is not affiliated with UC Berkeley, according to UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

UCPD officers responded around 5:38 a.m. to calls regarding shots fired near signpost 16, DeCoulode said.

Upon arriving at the scene, UCPD officers found the victim with gunshot wounds. He was next to his car, which was several yards away from where the shooting occurred. He was pronounced deceased at the scene by Berkeley Fire Department.

DeCoulode said a number of people were in the area when a disagreement or argument occurred, and Santana-Silva intervened and stopped the disagreement. A few people left, but within roughly 20 minutes, an unidentified person came back, walked up to Santana-Silva’s car and shot him multiple times.

According to DeCoulode, the investigation is ongoing.

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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On April 24, Mayen was driving a Toyota Corolla on Highway 92 on the side of the San Mateo Bridge when his car stalled. A black BMW station wagon rear-ended the Toyota, and a silver sedan rear-ended the BMW at 7:15 a.m., according to California Highway Patrol officer Art Montiel.

Shortly afterward, an ambulance transported Mayen to the Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where he passed away the next day, Montiel said. The California Highway Patrol is still investigating the crash.

“When Jose passed, I had to make the announcement to let everyone know,” said Genevieve Negron-Gonzales, a UC Berkeley lecturer on global poverty and practice, in an email. “Several students commented that they were looking for him that morning because he was always there, on time, sitting near the front, with a warm smile. His absence was felt by all of us.”

At the age of 16, Mayen came to the United States from Guatemala, facing the challenges of learning a new language and adapting to a different culture. However, these difficulties did not stop him from excelling academically.

When Mayen entered his sophomore year at Menlo-Atherton High School, he knew little English and took English instruction classes, but by the time he was in his junior year, he had already caught up and was taking core English classes.

“He had a great sense of community,” said Stephen Ready, a bilingual resource teacher at Menlo-Atherton High School. “He was diligent about catching up, accelerating up as quickly as he could … In my 20 years as an educator, I have never known anyone like him.”

Before he came to UC Berkeley, Mayen attended Canada College, where he was heavily involved in many areas of campus life, such as serving as the vice president of the campus’ student government, working as a tutor for English learners and helping out at the reference desk in the library.

“We have a lot of students who start off the same way as Jose,” said David Patterson, a librarian at Canada College. “They’re immigrants, they have very little English and they have lots of dreams … Jose was able to do it. He was able to transfer to Berkeley.”

His passion for helping others led him to consider sociology as a major. Since he personally knew the challenges immigrants face upon coming to America, Mayen hoped to be an immigration lawyer, Patterson recalled. Even before he came to UC Berkeley, Mayen had already received his paralegal certificate.

One of the classes Mayen took at UC Berkeley was called “Educational Justice: Undocumented Migrant Students and Struggles to Remake ‘Citizenship.’”
“(Jose) saw himself as a member of a community and wanted to get involved in changing the conditions that make it so difficult for marginalized students to access a university education,” Negron-Gonzales said.

But beyond his academics, Mayen was also deeply committed to his family. When his father went into heart failure, he deferred his admission to UC Berkeley, according to Alicia Aguirre, mayor of Redwood City and a professor of Spanish literature at Canada College.

“He was just one of those students you loved having in class,” Aguirre said. “I challenge people to follow in his dreams, to do what you really believe in doing.”

Mayen is survived by his parents, his brother and his sister, who live in California.

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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According to the report, Mayen, 23, was on his way to school when he stopped on the side of the San Mateo Bridge after he discovered he had a flat tire. His car was then struck by a speeding car.

A community group recently started a page on the website GiveForward.com to help pay for his memorial and burial. The group raised about $8,005 of its $15,000 goal as of early Tuesday evening.

Check back for more updates.

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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The heated debate began Wednesday evening and carried on for 10 hours, continuing into Thursday. Anna Head Alumnae Hall overflowed with hundreds of UC Berkeley students, faculty and community members engaging in a contentious debate regarding the bill, SB 160.

SB 160, authored by Student Action Senator George Kadifa, calls the UC system a “complicit third party” in Israel’s “illegal occupation and ensuing human rights abuses” and seeks the divestment of more than $14 million in ASUC and UC assets from Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Cement Roadstone Holdings. According to the bill, these companies provide equipment, materials and technology to the Israeli military, including bulldozers and biometric identification systems.

The final vote, which occurred just before 5:30 a.m., was met with cheering, stomping and cries of joy by supporters of the bill.

Independent Senator and bill co-sponsor Sadia Saifuddin said she saw the vote as the culmination of years of struggle.

“Tonight is not about corporations,” she said. “It’s about asking ourselves before we go to sleep whether our money is going toward the destruction of homes, toward the erection of a wall. I am a working student. And I don’t want one cent of my money to go toward fueling the occupation of my brothers and sisters.”

But across the aisle, opponents of the bill were silent, absorbing the defeat with dismay.

SQUELCH! Senator Jason Bellet decried the bill for ignoring an important side in the issue.

“If we walk away with anything tonight, it’s that this conflict is nuanced,” Bellet said. “But divestment and the language set forth in SB 160 frames Israel as the sole aggressor. This is more than just divesting from three companies. Divestment is undoubtedly taking a side in the conflict.”

The vote was emotional for senators as well as spectators. At least three senators broke down in tears as they gave their final comments following the vote.

Dozens of community members spoke at the beginning of the meeting, pleading their cases to the senate late into the night.

Supporters of the divestment bill — which included Muslim and Jewish students alike, as well as members of other campus communities — said they opposed the ASUC and university’s financial involvement with companies that benefit from alleged human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli government.

“There are few experiences more traumatic than losing your home or being forced out of the place you call home,” said UC Berkeley junior Kamyar Jarahzadeh. “This university’s money — our money — is complicit in the deprivation of human rights.”

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, who said she had visited the Gaza Strip, was present at the meeting and publicly voiced her support for SB 160.

Following the senate’s decision on SB 160, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau released a statement Thursday afternoon expressing disapproval of the bill’s passage.

“It is my personal opinion that targeting a single nation or state in this highly complex world is not appropriate and does little to advance the cause of peace and coexistence,” Birgeneau said in a statement. “Ultimately, we believe that engaging in dialogue on these difficult issues is the best hope that we have for achieving peace.”

In his statement, Birgeneau also revealed that UCPD is currently investigating an incident on Sproul Plaza in which a student who was handing out pro-divestment fliers was struck in the face. UCPD Lt. Eric Tejada confirmed in an interview with The Daily Californian that the incident to which Birgeneau referred is the battery that occurred on April 1, when a student tabling on Sproul was punched and knocked to the ground.

On Wednesday night, the senate was also set to vote on SB 158, an opposing bill to SB 160, but the bill was tabled following the long discussion of SB 160. SB 158 “seek(s) investment opportunities that strengthen Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in pursuit of a two state resolution to the conflict” rather than divestment.

Many members of the Jewish community decried SB 160’s targeted divestment from Israel as choosing one side of the conflict at the expense of the other when suffering has occurred on both.

“Divestment does nothing to better the lives of Palestinians,” said political science professor Ron Hassner. “It seeks to undermine, harm and destroy and offers no vision of an Israeli-Palestinian future.”

Opponents of divestment also reminded the senate of the hostile campus climate Jewish students faced after the 2010 divestment attempt. Many said they felt alienated and unwelcome and warned that the passage of SB 160 could affect Jewish students’ decisions to come to UC Berkeley.

“We will take home that an amendment asking for a two-state solution was failed,” said SQUELCH! party chair and former Daily Cal columnist Noah Ickowitz. “We will take home that an amendment asking for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was failed. We will take home that this body takes divestment as a weapon of choice when that is not the only weapon in our arsenal.”

Although the bill passed, ASUC President Connor Landgraf has the option to veto it. According to the ASUC Constitution, the president may veto an action by the senate within seven days of the decision. A two-thirds vote by the senate is needed to override a presidential veto.

“It was a very close decision, and clearly, it’s an issue in which our campus is divided about,” Landgraf said in an interview. “I will be thinking about (the vote) and deciding on that.”

In 2010, the senate passed a similar divestment bill that was later vetoed by then-president Will Smelko. In the weeks that followed, the senate failed to reach a two-thirds vote to override the veto.

Daphne Chen contributed to this report.

Contact Jeremy Gordon and Daphne Chen at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Originally, the Compassionate Sidewalks Plan involved establishing both a subcommittee with four council members and a community group to analyze causes of homelessness, existing homeless programs and funding sources. At the council meeting Tuesday, Arreguin decided to move forward with only the community working group instead.

“Based on the concerns that have been raised regarding costs and staffing, I think it may be best to allow the community process to proceed, and then we can … form our own subcommittee to look at the ideas that have been put forward,” Arreguin said.

The community group will develop recommendations for the council for a number of issues in the city regarding homelessness, such as ways to improve services and create more housing opportunities.

Although the city currently spends about $8 million on homeless services, Berkeley has a homeless population of 824, according to a city report.

At the council’s special work session Tuesday, city staff members and Elaine de Coligny, executive director of EveryOne Home, an organization that conducts homeless counts, emphasized challenges that the community group should target, such as limited resources with staffing.

For instance, the city’s Housing and Community Services Department staff has decreased by 40 percent over the last five years, and its homeless outreach team has dwindled to one staff person, said Jane Micallef, director of Housing and Community Services, at the meeting.

Moreover, staff members highlighted the need for permanent housing and a more centralized system so the homeless do not have to go randomly from one agency to another without actually addressing their problems.

“The current system here in Berkeley and throughout the county is not a coordinated intake,” de Coligny said. “There’s a lot of randomness. There’s a lot of luck and a lot of bad luck.”

Council members raised concerns regarding how to help those who voluntarily live on the streets and how to provide more concrete data about the demographics of homelessness.

“Doing (a homeless count) once every four years is not enough, and we need to know more about the population we’re trying to serve,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “This problem is always talked about in vague sort of terms … it needs continuous attention.”

While supportive of this effort to address homelessness, Roland Peterson, executive director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District, believes the council should also consider how to address inappropriate street behavior as a separate issue.

According to Anthony Sanchez, legislative aide to Arreguin, council members will start identifying stakeholders interested in addressing homelessness over the next several weeks.

“We do have to become more efficient with what little we have,” said Councilmember Linda Maio

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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The annual fee for residential parking permits will increase by approximately 30 percent this year to cover a deficit in the Residential Preferential Parking program after a Tuesday vote from Berkeley City Council.

The Residential Preferential Parking program has projected a $410,108 deficit for program costs in fiscal year 2013. At its Tuesday meeting, Berkeley City Council voted to raise annual parking permit fees from $34.50 to $45, an increase of around 30 percent.

The Residential Preferential Parking program enables Berkeley drivers to park in certain zones that may be limited to two-hour parking for those without permits. Currently, 14 different permit zones have been established throughout Berkeley, particularly in commercial and residential areas around the UC Berkeley campus.

Originally, the city staff recommended a 60 percent increase for all permits to cover the $410,108 deficit. This would have generated revenue of about $2 million and a surplus of about $16,000 for fiscal year 2014.

“There’s a shortage of $400,000,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “We’re faced with cutting programs for a lot of other areas.”

But both residents and council members expressed concerns about the dramatic increase to various fees.

“We pay more than enough taxes to cover the cost of dealing with this,” said resident Mark Copeland at the public hearing. “If I get a permit, I expect that what I should be paying for is the permit. I shouldn’t be paying for traffic enforcement or anything else … going after people’s permit fees is completely inappropriate, completely.”

However, for fiscal year 2013, operating the program — including identifying and establishing the zones, administering the program and enforcing the permits — costs a projected $1.99 million, while the sources of revenue from permit fees and citations is projected to be $1.58 million.

Raising annual parking permit fees from $34.50 to $45 is expected to increase revenue by approximately $184,000 per year, according to Pamela Embry, spokesperson for the city manager’s office.

Councilmember Susan Wengraf said she was surprised that not many residents showed up to voice their objections to the proposed permit fees.

“We are asking residents to bear the burden, but the people who violate the system don’t get the increase,” Wengraf said. “It’s only the people who live here who bear the burden of the program. I think it’s all mixed up.”

In addition to increasing annual permit fees, the council also decided to increase merchant permit fees from $114 to $125 and community-serving facility permit fees from $46 to $56. Nonannual permit fees, such as those for one-day visitor permits, were not changed at the meeting.

However, Councilmember Laurie Capitelli raised concerns about how the council and staff should spend more time evaluating all the options available to establish a more detailed plan.

“I’m loath to raise these fees without comprehensively looking at the whole picture,” Capitelli said.

On top of the fee increases passed Tuesday, the City Council has directed the city staff to examine other possible fee changes for nonannual permits and raise the limit on how many visitor permits a resident may purchase, which will be discussed at a later date.

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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At its meeting Tuesday night, City Council voted to extend hours of operation for businesses between Bancroft and Dwight ways to create Berkeley’s first 24-hour commercial zone.

“Students and people — particularly in their 20s or 30s — have schedules that aren’t rigidly 9-to-5, so we thought it’d be something very popular,” said Roland Peterson, executive director of the Telegraph Business Improvement District. “For Telegraph, this makes all the sense in the world.”

Currently, businesses that do not serve alcohol can stay open until midnight Sunday through Thursday and until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays — two hours later than those that do serve alcohol. Businesses that want later hours must apply for an Administrative Use Permit or Use Permit, which is often a lengthy process.

Under the new ordinance, businesses will no longer have to apply for individual permits to extend their closing hours.

Craig Becker, owner of Caffe Mediterraneum, received a permit in June 2011 to stay open for 24 hours. However, since then, the cafe has maintained its regular closing hours at midnight.

“If we had enough traffic, if we were able to build up a nighttime economy, that makes it worthwhile … we might consider extending our hours,” he said. “We hope that in the future, there’ll be more business.”

This idea has long been in the works and has been discussed widely over the last few years. In May 2010, City Council considered extending hours to 3 a.m. until the Telegraph Business Improvement District suggested a “24/7 zone” instead.

“It’ll encourage students to socialize together at different hours of the night and promote safety on Telegraph,” said ASUC External Affairs Vice President Shahryar Abbasi. “Telegraph needs to be revitalized and provide more options for students.”

However, Berkeley Police Department and the division of code enforcement have expressed concerns that extending hours could lead to “increased negative behavior.”

To address these concerns, the ordinance specifies that businesses that sell alcohol for off-site consumption will have to maintain closing hours at midnight, and many believe the noise level should not be an issue.

“This is new for Berkeley,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “It’s an experiment.”

Yet the vision for an energetic, late-night environment is just one factor in the city’s efforts to revitalize Telegraph Avenue and boost its economy — one that may take some time to live up to its full potential.

“It may take a few years for it to gain momentum and create a critical mass of businesses that are interested in (staying open 24/7),” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “(But) I think it’s worth trying out and seeing if it works.”

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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The family discovered that they would not be allowed to return to the U.S. because they had failed to renew their visas. Worse yet, they would have to wait five years to apply for a visa to return.

“I took it really bad,” Rodrigo said. “I started to cry, and I couldn’t speak, and I was really scared.”

Rodrigo, who attended Jefferson Elementary, and his parents, Javier Guzman and Reyna Mayida, were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Houston.

In response, classmates and school parents have launched the “Bring Rodrigo Home!” campaign to push government officials to let the family return to Berkeley. The campaign includes an online petition, which has gained more than 500 signatures since Tuesday.

Humanitarian parole can be used to temporarily bring someone who may be inadmissible into the country based on a medical emergency or a large public outcry, according to parent Mable Yee, who is spearheading the campaign.

“Immigration is all of our problems,” Yee said. “My son loves to say that unless you’re a dinosaur, everyone is an immigrant.”

Rodrigo is currently staying at a relative’s house and attending school in Mexico but finds it difficult to call the place “home.”

“Home is a place where I really want to be, a place where I have my friends, a place where I have my family, a place where I’m not alone,” he said.

Likewise, classmates, friends and teachers have missed Rodrigo dearly.

“I was disappointed that he wasn’t back, and I was angry because they sent him back,” said Scott Kuwahara, Guzman’s friend who Skypes and plays Minecraft with him.

Barbara Wenger, Rodrigo’s fourth-grade teacher, was heartbroken to hear he would not be coming back. Wenger described Rodrigo as a natural leader who was quick to help peers and who, for fun, led Gangnam Style dances in class.

“He had a bright future here, and he has the potential to be the kind of future leader our country needs,” Wenger said in an email.

Rodrigo’s situation has since gained popular support in Berkeley, with City Council unanimously passing a request for humanitarian support for the Guzman family and sending letters to President Barack Obama, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland.

Last week, the Berkeley Unified School District Board also unanimously passed a similar resolution, encouraging federal legislators to enact a compassionate immigration policy.

“This connected civil rights in a way that no textbook could, but also from the point of fourth-graders, this is someone they’ve been with since kindergarten,” said School Board Director Karen Hemphill.

Lee also said she hopes to continue to fight for immigration policy that is fair and promotes longterm economic growth.

“Stories like Rodrigo’s are a reminder of the deficiencies of the current system and underscore the need for real, comprehensive immigration reform,” Lee said.

According to Yee, the campaign is hoping to increase media attention and will hold multiple events, including a trip to Washington, D.C., to lobby for the Guzman family’s return.

“I feel very thankful that they’re helping me in a big way,” Rodrigo said. “They’re doing this whole thing, such a big thing, just to get me back home.”

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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Teachers in the school district have not seen a raise since the 2008-09 school year, said Cathy Campbell, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers.

“I feel demoralized by the way the district is treating us,” Alamo said. “The workload that we’ve taken on is much more than we’ve had in the past.”

On Feb. 28, the school board rejected the union’s previously proposed one-time 10 percent bonus and offered a 1 percent raise for the 2013-14 school year instead, according to Campbell. Following the unsuccessful negotiations, the union is now proposing a 5.2 percent increase of current salaries, retroactive to July 1, 2012.

For Alamo, stagnant paychecks from Berkeley Unified School District combined with increasing health care premium costs have increased financial difficulties. She paid $188 per month for health care in 2009, but costs have now increased to $513 per month.

“(Teachers) want to feel like their work is valued, and that’s not how we feel right now,” Alamo said. “It feels really overwhelming.”

According to Campbell, the union was hoping the district would consider using its excess cash reserves to increase teachers’ salaries. The school district currently has $7.8 million in excess of the state’s required 3 percent reserve, the district’s budget report states.

“The union is concerned about where negotiations stand right now,” Campbell said. “There’s lots of ways to fund salary increases. We think that they need to use some of their cash reserves.”

Last August, the district’s school board did unanimously vote to give teachers a one-time 1 percent salary bonus.

“We wanted to at least acknowledge that we understood that the teachers and other staff had not received an increase for several years,” said School Board Director Karen Hemphill. “The cost of living had gone up. The cost of health care had gone up.”

The Berkeley school board declined to comment on ongoing labor negotiations, although Hemphill said topics including the optimal amount of money the district should have in its savings and the impact of Proposition 30 will be discussed.

“We do care about our teachers,” Hemphill said. “There’s still a lot more to be discussed. It’s the beginning of the process, not the end.”
According to Campbell, contract negotiations happen every two weeks. The next one is scheduled for March 14.

“Berkeley is a great district to work for,” Alamo said. “Our teaching corps is (the) best you could find in any district, (but) we’re going to start losing teachers if we don’t start compensating people.”

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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According to the city’s quarterly economic development report released Tuesday, Berkeley’s 7.8 percent unemployment rate remains lower than Alameda County’s 8.2 percent and the state’s 9.7 percent as of December 2012. In the previous year, the unemployment rate in Berkeley was 8.9 percent. In Berkeley, about 69 percent of the population above 25 years old has a bachelor’s degree or higher.

“More employers are looking for educated workers,” said economic development manager Michael Caplan. “Industries that are growing in the region tend to be knowledge-based … people who have less education have a harder time finding a job.”

Growth in certain sectors, such as research and technology, has increased demand for a more highly educated and trained workforce, Councilmember Jesse Arreguin added.

Between 2007 and 2011, unemployment rates in Berkeley were 3.9 percent for those with college degrees ages 25 to 64, 14.6 percent for those with a high school education and 19.5 for those without high school or college diplomas, the report states.

In comparison, in the neighboring city of Oakland, about 37.2 percent of people older than 25 have a Bachelor’s degree or higher, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Berkeley’s 7.8 percent unemployment rate is the lowest since the peak of 11.3 percent in March 2010 in the tailwind of the global economic crisis. Yet, even at its peak levels, Berkeley’s unemployment rate has historically remained lower than both that of Alameda County and of California.

According to Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, one of the reasons is that the university is a major employer, and the jobs provided are less dependent on fluctuating economic cycles.

Despite the steady decline, council members agreed at the City Council meeting that the number is still high and that more work needs to be done.

“It’s falling, but it’s still pretty high,” Wozniak said. “How do we get back the employment to 10 years ago when it was 10 percent higher?”

Between 2001 and 2012, the number of jobs decreased from 66,616 to 60,165, the report states. However, over the years, the number of self-employed people in the city has increased from 6,733 in 1990 to 8,618 in 2010, Arreguin said.

Berkeley City Council will be looking into various solutions, such as improving early education for children to make sure they continue pursuing higher education, according to Councilmember Kriss Worthington. These issues will be further discussed in May when the next quarterly report is compiled, Caplan added.

Daphne Chen is the lead city government reporter. Contact her at daphnechen@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @dchen_dc.

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