Kevin Hahn/Staff

The U.S. Postal Regulatory Commission has agreed to hear an appeal filed by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates protesting the sale of Berkeley’s main post office, Bates announced Monday.

Bates has until Sept. 3 to submit a formal brief to the regulatory commission, which comprises five presidentially appointed members and oversees the United States Postal Service. The commission will rule on the appeal within 120 days on Nov. 27.

The committee has two options: reject Bates’ appeal and allow the Postal Service to go forward with plans to sell the building or return the plans to the Postal Service for further review and consideration. For now, the appeal has halted any sale of the building.

On July 18, the service rejected a previous effort in March by city officials asking for a one-year stay on the sale of the post office.

Bates’ complaint was filed in May and contests designating the post office sale as a relocation, as the Postal Service has done. Bates said that if the service truly wanted to relocate, a site should be “located and secured” before the current building is sold.

“The Postal Service is putting our historic Berkeley Main Post Office building up for sale under the guise of a ‘relocation of retail services,’” Bates said in a statement. “I believe USPS never had the intention to relocate postal services and is playing semantic games with our community — what they really want is to sell the building.”

Should Bates’ appeal fall through, Berkeley residents do not plan to back down. Save the Berkeley Post Office — which has protested the sale since it was announced last year — and other groups have committed to a lawsuit in federal court for an injunction to stop the sale. Additionally, about 20 protesters have been camped in front of the post office for about two weeks and have no plans of moving out.

“I think it’s great an appeal has been approved to be heard,” said Berkeley resident and UC Berkeley alumnus Jonathan Dignes. “But why give up any ground?”

Berkeley City Council is notorious for being divided but has shown unanimous support against the post office’s sale.

Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin recently introduced a zoning overlay to restrict the property to civic, cultural or community-oriented uses.

“We’re not going gently into the night,” Bates said. “We’re fighting this every step of the way. This is a seven-act opera.”

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org

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Alex Mousouris/Staff

After laughing and chatting in close-knit circles, it’s finally time for a group of Nigerian state legislators in the living room of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy to hear the day’s lecture — a lecture that aims to bring them one step closer to implementing better public policies in their state.

The group of 40 legislators from the Delta State House of Assembly in Nigeria arrived in Berkeley on July 29 to take part in a newly designed two-week executive leadership program focusing on governance and policy development in areas such as housing, higher education and sustainable energy. They will be returning for the next two summers to participate in additional two-week training programs.

The Honorable Victor Ochei, speaker of Nigeria’s Delta State Legislature, said that when the House Assembly was originally looking at educational programs abroad, they were choosing between various prestigious schools, including UC Berkeley.

“We thought Harvard was the best, actually, but Goldman was the top-rated school,” Ochei said. “Here in Berkeley, it’s different because the style is more open and more practical. For every time there’s a lecture, there is a field trip. ”

Staff members at the Goldman school said they view the program as an exciting opportunity not only to teach theoretical public policy frameworks but also to see how those theories are put into practice by active world leaders. The school also partners with the Jiangsu province in China, Kochi University of Technology in Japan and the Civil Service Bureau of the Hong Kong special administrative region to create similar programs.

“We want to implement international policy and understand how other countries are thinking in order to be able to work with them,” said Sudha Shetty, assistant dean for global alliances at the school.

Different issues are addressed each day during the two-week program, providing a comprehensive education in each area of public policy the leaders wish to reform.

Wednesday’s itinerary included a discussion with Henry Brady, dean of the public policy school, concerning the dynamics of higher education and what it does for society. The discussion was followed by a group field trip to Sacramento to see California legislators in action.

On another day, legislators worked on developing innovative ways to engage Nigerian youth in issues like job access and education, which, according to the Honorable Barr Princess Pat Ajudua, has posed a significant challenge.

“The youth are restless — restless from unemployment and lack of education,” Ajudua said. “When youth get out of school and find themselves without a job, they turn to all kinds of criminal things to get money to leave their parents and get married and lead a good life.”

Because of the program, Ajudua believes that the Assembly has already learned strategies to confront the issue, such as instating more facilities provided for youth to go to school, financial grounds for students to get an education they otherwise could not afford and initiating new training programs for teachers.

Despite the seriousness of the political problems the program aimed to tackle, the atmosphere in the lecture hall was both academically rigorous and social. Assembly members shared many laughs and side conversations between PowerPoint slides on global governance.

“So far, the program’s been fantastic,” Ochei said.

Contact Andrew Dickey and Nico Correia at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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The discussion to increase the minimum wage from the state standard of $8 per hour — as both San Francisco and San Jose have done — began in May, when Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Jesse Arreguin and Kriss Worthington drafted a statement urging the commission to consider implementing a local minimum wage of $10.55 per hour.

Last Wednesday, about 100 people marched to a Commission on Labor meeting held at the North Berkeley Senior Center to comment on the idea. While most at the meeting were in favor of raising the minimum wage, some said that tipped minimum wage workers should not be eligible, because they have the potential to make more money than the average minimum wage worker.

The decision to raise the wage above state levels remains controversial, especially in light of inconclusive evidence regarding its economic effects.

A study commissioned by the California Restaurant Association investigated the potential impact of a wage hike in San Jose. The study began prior to the implementation of the wage hike and found that thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars could be lost as a result.

But Javier Gonzalez, director of local government affairs for the California Restaurant Association, said no such study has been conducted since the minimum wage hike was implemented in March.

Restaurant owners in Berkeley are also concerned the wage increase will hurt business in the area.

“Isn’t the city trying to attract new business,” said Natalie and Todd Kniess, co-founders of the Berkeley Restaurant Alliance in a public record submission to City Council and the Berkeley Labor Commission on July 10. “(A wage hike) certainly won’t attract new business, as everybody knows. Who’s going to offset the bad news?”

UC Berkeley economics professor Michael Reich, who has studied the minimum wage increase in both San Francisco and San Jose, does not think an increase in minimum wage would create a negative effect on business and says that it could, in fact, benefit Berkeley businesses.

“Although some potential employers thinking of locating just inside Berkeley’s borders might choose instead a location just across the border, the higher minimum wage will also attract more people to work at Berkeley-based companies,” Reich said in an email. “A higher minimum wage will make it easier for Berkeley employers to attract and retain more workers.”

The commission will continue to deliberate and hear testimony on the issue. Ben Beach, a member of the commission’s minimum wage subcommittee, said he hopes and expects to make a recommendation to the City Council in the fall.

“I think it is pretty clear where public opinion is going with minimum wage in Berkeley,” said Angus Teter, chair of the subcommittee. “The opinion is that Berkeley should increase the minimum wage, including for restaurant workers … it doesn’t make sense to uplift only some minimum wage workers.”

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org

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Joe Wright/File

The U.S. Postal Service announced a final decision Thursday to sell Berkeley’s main post office despite city and community appeals.

In a letter explaining the decision to relocate, Tom Samra, vice president of facilities at the Postal Service, said proposed solutions like leasing out unused space or providing new services were not possible because of legal restraints and conflict with the Postal Service’s core mission of being an efficient postal services, not a landlord.

Despite the continued protest over the decision, the Postal Service stands soundly in its decision.

“I am satisfied the April 9th relocation decision properly took into account community input and is consistent with Postal Service objectives,” said Tamra in his letter.

In an attempt to block sale proceedings, Berkeley City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin introduced a new ordinance — a zoning overlay — at last week’s City Council meeting to limit uses allowed on the property.

“I have also put forward a proposal to change the zoning for the property to significantly restrict what can be done to the property so it remains for civic, cultural or community oriented use and not become a bed and breakfast like some historic post offices have in other cities,” Arreguin said in an email.

Save the Berkeley Post Office, one of two major Berkeley organizations against the sale, decided at a Monday meeting to proceed on multiple fronts to stop the sale of the office.

The organization hopes to support national legislation pending in Congress to stop the sale of historic post offices on a national scale and take direct action by protesting in Berkeley and Washington, D.C., and committing to a lawsuit in federal courts for an injunction to stop any sales transaction.

CBRE Inc., the world’s largest real estate services firm, became the Postal Service’s sole real estate agent in June 2011. The chair of the CBRE board, UC Regent Richard Blum, is also the spouse of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Gray Brechin, a visiting scholar in the campus department of geography who has been active in the fight against the sale of the main post office, believes Blum’s relationship with Feinstein constitutes a conflict of interest.

However, in a February article by the San Francisco Chronicle, Feinstein’s office denied any such conflict.

“Senator Feinstein is not involved with and does not discuss any of her husband’s business decisions with him,” said Feinstein’s office to the Chronicle. “Senator Feinstein’s assets are held in a blind trust.”

Some critics note that the undetermined relocation of the main post office would see it move from a building it owns, in which it has tax-exempt status, into a leased space it does not — another financial burden on a struggling postal service.

The main post office has not been sold yet, but according to Arreguin, many businesses have expressed interest in utilizing the space. Last fall, he took a tour of the building with several businesses that were considering its purchase.

“Buyer beware,” said Moni T. Law, a UC Berkeley alumna and member of the Save the Berkeley Post Office Committee. “Any buyer thinking of buying this building should think twice, because there is a strong and unanimous opposition from the City Council, state legislators, Representative Barbara Lee and an active and vocal citizenry.”

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org

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las-initially/Creative Commons/Courtesy

Go ahead, give a dog a bone — but make it low fat.

Jas Mattu, a veterinarian for Berkeley-based University Veterinary Hospital, is raising awareness of the pet obesity epidemic. According to the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention, more than half of cats and dogs in the United States are overweight or obese.

Mattu said the fault lies with humans, not with their pets. Some physical causes of pet obesity, such as too much food and not enough exercise, are clear cut. But other contributing factors, like human obesity and a sense that well-fed pets are better cared for, add to the problem.

“Our pets give us love, and we are letting our personal desire to give back, to feed them and give them more and more food, lead to health problems,” Mattu said. “Don’t kill your pets with love.”

Some instances of human owners overfeeding their pets have proved fatal. Just last month, news broke that a woman in Ottawa, Canada, was charged with animal cruelty after she allowed her cat to reach more than 25 pounds. The cat later needed to be put down due to obesity-related health problems.

Often, pet owners may not even realize their pets are unhealthy — a phenomenon referred to as the “fat pet gap” by Ernie Ward, president of the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention. The gap is used to describe the difference between pet owners’ perception of overweight and what is medically considered overweight.

“Pet owners come in and deny their pets are overweight,” Ward said. “They’ll say, ‘Oh he’s just a big boy,’ or ‘she’s just big-boned.’ This denial results in inactivity and inaction when it comes to pet health.”

More than 45 percent of dog and cat owners surveyed incorrectly identified their dogs or cats as being at a normal weight when they were actually overweight or obese, according to the 2012 National Pet Obesity Survey.

Escalating human obesity could also explain the rise in pet obesity, said Bela Kisamov, medical director of the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, in an email.

“As people become increasingly unable to exercise due to their own medical conditions, the pets suffer the same fate of becoming increasingly unable to exercise,” she said.

Kisamov also notes that a lack of transparency on the part of pet food companies may be leading to a rise in pet obesity.

“The pet food industry does not, and is not required to, state calories per cup or can on the packaging, like it is required for human food consumption,” Kisamov said in the email. “Calories in pet food can vary drastically from one brand to the next, just like the quality of the ingredients can vary from one variety of food to the next.”

Also, while pet food packaging usually recommends a serving size, according to Kisamov, this amount is listed in a wide range.

“If a bag of dry cat food recommends 1/4-1/2 cup per day, it does not differentiate between an active indoor/outdoor cat with lots of expended energy versus an indoor only cat that does little but stare out the window all day,” Kisamov said in the email.

But the answer to healthier pet diets may also lie in alternative dog food brands, said Evan Ho, an employee at Pet Food Express in Berkeley and a volunteer at Berkeley Animal Care Services, in a Facebook message. Holistic and natural dog food brands have fewer calories and are more accountable than other supermarket brands, Ho said.

However, holistic dog foods sometimes carry a heftier fee than generic brands do.

“It is definitely more expensive to buy from a holistic brand than a supermarket brand,” Ho said in the message. “The price difference is what makes people hesitate to want to help obese animals.”

The added expense associated with obese animals has discouraged some Berkeley residents from adopting overweight pets in animal shelters.

“Last year, Carmen, one of my favorite dogs, had to be put down because no one was willing to rescue or adopt an obese dog,” Ho said of his time at Berkeley Animal Care Services. “It’s a serious issue because people often take (obese pets) as a joke … these animals have less of a chance to be taken care of.”

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org.

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Katherine Chen/File

Residents of a Derby Street neighborhood were enjoying time with their families at home shortly before they witnessed Berkeley’s second homicide of the year on Wednesday night.

Scott Blake was in his house on the corner of Derby and Grant streets with his 10-year-old daughter when he heard four or five gunshots. She asked him what the noise was and whether it was gunfire. Blake lied and said there was no gunfire.

“I feel bad about lying to my daughter, but she’s 10 years old,” he said. “I don’t want her to think it’s dangerous by the house.”

He waited until the gunfire ceased and then ran around the corner to see a young man on the ground, bleeding from multiple exit wounds.

Berkeley police arrived at the scene at approximately 6:52 p.m. Wednesday night in response to multiple reports of gunshots and discovered a severely wounded male, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital.

BPD has not yet released the identity of the victim, but several Berkeley residents identified him as Jermaine “Thurgood” Davis — the brother of Charles Davis, a man murdered by Oakland gang members in 2009. According to prosecutors, four men sought out Jermaine in 2009, and when they could not find him, they found and killed his brother Charles.

The Davis family was close-knit, said Todd Walker, a friend of the family for more than 40 years. He described Jermaine as a 26-year-old trying to get his life back together two or three years after “being involved in some things” when he was younger.

“It was just a fluke,” Walker said.

Residents of the neighborhood are divided regarding whether the shooting is cause for concern and safety measures or a so-called fluke.

Diane Abney, another resident on the block, said she arrived home from work around 6:50 p.m. as the police were cordoning off the street and saw the body with blood coming from the face. Abney said she had to step around the body, which was lying in front of the neighboring house, to reach her front door.

“There’s nothing much I can do,” Abney said.

Abney pointed to yellow chalkings and a single vigil candle on the pavement in front of a purple two-story house, which still showed remnants of caution tape late Thursday morning.

“He was laying right there,” she said.

Judith Gips, another resident of the block and a Berkeley resident since the age of 18, does not think the neighborhood is “especially dangerous.”

“(Murder) just doesn’t happen around here,” Gips said, adding that she raised her daughter in Berkeley.

Blake, however, is more concerned. His nephew Tyler Jamison, a 17-year-old student at Berkeley Technology Academy — just up the block — was shot and killed in East Oakland in February in a what may have been a gang-related shootout.

“Right here is a Berkeley Unified School District bus stop for elementary kids, and we were really lucky this didn’t happen when a lot of kids were running around playing,” Blake said.

Blake, who is part of an implementation team for the city of Oakland working for a national violence reduction strategy, was with Davis Wednesday night until the ambulance took him away.

“He was going away while we waited for the police and ambulance to come,” Blake said. “I didn’t want him to die by himself. He was just a kid.”

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org and J. Hannah Lee at jhlee@dailycal.org.

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Tuition would stay the same at all professional schools except the system’s four nursing programs and four newly created master’s degrees. Discussion on professional school fees for the coming year was postponed in November by Gov. Jerry Brown in the wake of the passage of Proposition 30.

Graduate students in academic programs, however, will not be affected by the fee proposal. Professional programs require supplemental tuition fees that other graduate students in academic programs do not pay. Professional programs include law, medicine and business degrees, and academic programs include studies in English, chemistry and history, among others.

According to UC spokesperson Dianne Klein, supplemental fees make sense because professional schools follow a very different funding model than undergraduate programs do — in large part due to the policy decisions of past state governments.

“Gov. Schwarzenegger, for example, believed that while the state had an obligation to fund undergraduate education, the professional schools should be the responsibility of the individual students,” Klein said in an email. “These were the future high earners—the physicians, lawyers and business people.”

The regents will still be asked to approve a fee increase for university’s nursing programs due to a lack of promised state and federal funding after a ramp-up of the nursing programs. The regents will consider approving new fees for new degree programs. Overall, 800 students will be affected by new charges.

“It isn’t very transparent when (the regents) do any fee increases over the summer when students aren’t on campus,” said Bahar Navab, president of the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly.

UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare Dean Jeffrey L. Edleson said he is sympathetic to the rising costs of higher education and students’ struggles to pay bills.

“On the other hand, by freezing tuition and PDST increases we are actually cutting the University’s budget each year,” Edleson said in an email. “We simply cannot provide the world’s best public education on a shrinking budget year after year.”

Even if the proposal on professional degree tuition is enacted, it could be changed in as little as a year.

 We concluded that most of the programs can get by for one year on their existing fee levels,” Klein said. “This is not a long-term, sustainable proposition, but it is one we think we can do for a year.”

Contact Nico Correia and Sohan Shah at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that funds from Proposition 30 and a undergraduate tuition buyout by the state government would be used to freeze tuition for many of UC’s professional degree programs. In fact, these funding sources are not connected to the tuition of the programs.

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American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3299, a union representing 22,000 service and patient workers at the UC campuses and medical centers, organized the event to protest a variety of issues, including cuts to current healthcare and pension benefits and a wage freeze.

Workers will begin to feel the effects of new UC policies beginning this month under a new system for pensions and healthcare.

This new system applies to nonunionized workers with under five years of service or anyone whose age is less than 50.

According to AFSCME lead organizer and UC Berkeley alumna Sarah Leadem, some of the most important worker proposals brought to the university will cost it the least.

“Some of our proposals won’t cost UC a dime but are all about student services and safe staffing and patient care — things like work load levels,” Leadem said. “We have one custodian cleaning an entire building right now.”

AFSCME had previously attempted to set up a meeting with UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks to further discuss contract negotiations and present him with a petition with over 400 signatures, according to a letter dated June 27.

UC Berkeley Labor Relations Director Debra Harrington accepted the petition and issued a response on Dirks’ behalf, explaining that he was away from campus at the time.

“Please be advised that Chancellor Dirks is supportive of the efforts to reach a fair and amicable resolution to the pending negotiations between the University of California and AFSCME Local 3299,” Harrington said in a follow-up email.

At the protest, UC workers, students and supportive labor unions gathered at the chancellor’s California Hall office to voice their upset over the recent developments.

“I am here today because my benefits and future are at stake,” said senior custodian Maricruz Manzanarez. “UC has offered us nothing and wants to take away what we have.”

Some UC Berkeley students also voiced their support for the workers.

“We need to understand that (workers) are an integral part of how we live, said UC Berkeley junior Spencer Pritchard. “Without them, this campus would not be functioning.”

The protests come amid ongoing contract negotiations between UC medical patient care workers and the university, including strikes in May.

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org

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Michael Ball/Staff/File

This Fourth of July, Berkeley residents will not have to stray far from home to find several exciting Independence Day events.

The largest event of the day is the Berkeley Marina Fourth of July fireworks & festival taking place from noon to 10 p.m. Along with live music and food, the festival will feature entertainment ranging from free dragon boating to pony rides. At the end of the day, there will be a fireworks show visible from the Marina at 9:30 p.m.

If BART is still on strike, several modes of transportation to the event are still available.

For those driving, parking passes at the Marina will cost $15 for the day; however, no vehicles will be allowed in or out after 7 p.m. until the event is over. There will also be paid parking at nearby Golden Gate Fields racetrack with shuttle service to the event.

Although it will be a holiday, AC Transit will run until 6:30 p.m. Cyclists will also have the option of free-of-charge valet parking at Richmond Spokes near Adventure Playground at the Marina.

In addition to the Berkeley Marina festival, two smaller events highlighting the cultural diversity of America will be offered.

From noon to 5 p.m., the exhibit “Our Many Cultures” will be open to the public at no cost at Expressions Gallery, located at 2035 Ashby Ave. The exhibit highlights the many cultures present in America and in the world.

Kala Art Institute, located at 2990 San Pablo Ave., will also offer free admission from noon to 5 p.m. to the exhibit “Freedom of Expression, The Work of Enrique Chagova.”

“Freedom of Expression” explores the history of Mexico and current political events with ties to American history and popular culture, specifically around colonial conquest and current issues surrounding the U.S.-Mexico border.

For more information, see the event calendar of visitberkeley.com.

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org

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A day after the Berkeley-based plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case were married at San Francisco Hall, after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the ban on gay marriage, the two found their marriage in jeopardy.

Typically, a grace period exists between the Supreme Court’s final ruling and implementation, but in this case, the 9th circuit court acted almost immediately to enact same-sex marriage just two days after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Proposition 8, causing an emergency appeal filed on behalf of the Prop. 8 legal team.

The appeal was filed after the California Department of Public Health released a letter directed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the clerks and registrar and recorders of the 58 counties of California that “effective immediately, county clerks shall issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in California.”

A Protect Marriage press release brought up the lack of a 25-day waiting period: “under Supreme Court procedural rules, ‘final disposition’ comes when the Supreme Court issues a ‘mandate’ to the Ninth Circuit, at least 25 days after announcing its opinion in the case.”

According to the press release, this immediate action of the decision did not allow time for petitions for the Supreme Court to rehear the case.

On Sunday, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy struck down the appeal, and Stier and Perry’s union will stand after more than four years of legal entanglement for the right to marry in California. Their marriage, witnessed by hundreds of enthusiastic onlookers, is finally legal.

With that final blockade to the marriage of Sandy and Kris gone, more celebration and happiness is sure to abound in the Perry household, according to their son Spencer Perry.

“It never occurred to me that I would feel any different after my parents got married,” Spencer said. “I can only describe how I’m feeling now as patriotic: I feel more connected to my country after this decision.”

Contact Nico Correia at ncorreia@dailycal.org

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