A complaint was filed on May 2 through the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Nahla Droubi, the landlord of the property that houses the dispensary. The lawsuit threatens to seize the property for allegedly violating federal law, which prohibits operating a marijuana dispensary.

Berkeley City Council members and representatives from Berkeley Patients Group held a press conference Wednesday afternoon in front of the Old City Hall expressing their opposition to the lawsuit.

“There is no legitimate reason to target Berkeley Patients Group,” said Sean Luse, chief operations officer at BPG. “They’re in compliance with state law. The U.S. attorney general … has chosen to hurt our patients by diverting attention from the real issues.”

Berkeley Patients Group also came into opposition with the federal government in February 2012, when it received letters from the U.S. attorney’s office for violating a federal law banning dispensaries from being located within 1,000 feet of a school. Even though California law dictates that the distance only has to be 600 feet, the dispensary voluntarily closed down and reopened at a new location in December a few blocks away.

According to the complaint, the U.S. attorney began sending Droubi letters again in November 2012 before the new location opened, warning that the new location would be in violation of the same federal law by being within 1,000 feet of two preschools. A second letter sent in February noted that the group could face criminal and civil penalties if operation continued.

Luse said that the federal government should focus its attention on other crime problems in the city, like illegal drug and gun trafficking. He also said that they plan to fight the lawsuit.

“We look forward to having our day in court and believe we will ultimately prevail,” Luse said.

City Councilmembers Darryl Moore, Kriss Worthington, Laurie Capitelli and Jesse Arreguin voiced their backing of Berkeley Patients Group at the press conference. Mayor Tom Bates also showed his support for the dispensary.

“I’m very, very disappointed that this has happened, and we’ll do anything we can to make sure they get back into business,” Bates said.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that the federal government was overstepping its boundaries, referencing the recent California Supreme Court ruling on City of Riverside v. Inland Empire Patients Health and Wellness Center. In the ruling, the court recognized the legality of medical cannabis dispensaries but allowed that local governments may ban dispensaries despite state law.

“Being a U.S. attorney doesn’t give you the right to change state law or city law,” Worthington said. “It’s so absurd. It’s a waste of time, and it’s threatening patient care.”

In the meantime, the dispensary will remain open, according to Henry Wykowski, attorney for Berkeley Patients Group.

“The only people that would benefit from the closing of Berkeley Patients Group are the gangs and cartels,” Wykowski said. “This action will cause them to prey on the patients who now have a clean, safe place to get their medicine.”

The federal government filed a similar lawsuit against a medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland last July. The city of Oakland filed a lawsuit in response, claiming that the federal government had overstepped its jurisdiction. A federal judge later dismissed the lawsuit, saying that only the dispensary and its landlords could contest the government’s seizure of property.

Wykowski said that they intend to file a claim in response to the lawsuit and will also present their case in court.

Contact Tara Hurley at thurley@dailycal.org.

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One of the selected plans was submitted by the Berkeley Student District Campaign, a group that aims to give students more representation in city government through the creation of a district with a student supermajority. A student supermajority would increase the likelihood of a UC Berkeley student being elected to Berkeley City Council.

“It’s important to note how historic of a move the council took last night (by) indicating that one of their top proposals is one submitted by students,” said Shahryar Abbasi, ASUC external affairs vice president. “It’s quite a shift in the discourse and the dialogue.”

About 45 UC Berkeley students, including Abbasi, attended the City Council meeting in support of the campaign. While seven different plans were considered at the public hearing Tuesday night, only two did not include a student-majority district.

The only remaining competition to the Berkeley Student District Campaign is the “simplicity” plan, which focuses on straightforward district divisions. The plan’s author, Eric Panzer, openly endorsed the Berkeley Student District Campaign’s plan and said that he hopes his proposal will be considered only as a “worthy alternative.”

The City Council may favor Panzer’s plan due to its clarity, according to ASUC External Affairs Vice President Redistricting Director Noah Efron.

“There are certainly some council members who want clean lines on their map,” Efron said. “The council still has full control.”

Throughout the hearing, multiple City Council members expressed their support for a student-majority district, which has never existed in the city of Berkeley. The only UC Berkeley student to ever hold a seat on the City Council was current State Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, who served from 1984 to 1992.

The plans were made possible by the passage of Measure R last November, which amended the existing city charter to eliminate the 1986 boundary lines and adjusted the district boundaries to reflect the city’s updated population.

According to ASUC External Affairs Vice President-elect Safeena Mecklai, a student district would allow students a say in major city issues like safety, economic development and other issues that impact students and residents equally.
“I think we would benefit from more voices of young people,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin last night. “It accomplishes the goal but keeps a lot of major neighborhoods intact.”

The next public hearing, during which the City Council is slated to select a plan, will be on July 2.

Though the meeting will take place during the summer, Mecklai said the campaign plans to build a coalition of students to attend and express their support.

“We certainly took (last night) as a great victory, and it certainly feels more tangible now than it ever has,” Efron said. “(But) until we hear that they have officially adopted it, we won’t be celebrating.”

Contact Claire Chiara at cchiara@dailycal.org.

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The rally began at noon and was followed by a protest in the streets surrounding the campus before ending outside California Hall. UC Berkeley’s May Day event coincides with other International Workers’ Day activities throughout the Bay Area that seek to improve conditions for workers and citizenship opportunities for immigrants.

“We need to say that this university belongs to the public,” said Hatem Bazian, a professor of Near Eastern studies who attended the rally. “It was built by us collectively … yet we have institutions and leadership that think they are on the board of directors of corporation A or B.”

Workers from multiple unions — including AFSCME 3299, a union representing health care and service workers, and UAW Local 2865, a union representing UC student workers — attended the rally.

Wednesday’s May Day rally comes in the midst of labor negotiations between AFSCME 3299 and the university.

“It’s all part of putting the pressure on UC to give us a just and fair contract,” said Sarah Leadem, an organizer for AFSCME 3299.

AFSCME recently scheduled a strike vote from April 30 to May 2 to bring attention to alleged patient-care violations and the elimination of hundreds of frontline care jobs. In a statement, Dwaine Duckett, UC vice president for systemwide human resources, said that the university is open to compromise but needs engagement from AFSCME leaders.

Amanda Armstrong, head steward for the UAW 2865 and a graduate student in rhetoric, said GSIs, readers and tutors are also entering into contract negotiations. Armstrong spoke to a crowd gathered outside California Hall about demands the union has, including a cap on class size, better wages and health benefits for student-workers and an end to discrimination in hiring in the workplace.

“Being a graduate student in the university, I do have a lot of benefits.” said Vreni Michelini, a graduate student in art practice who was a GSI in the fall. “But I also see and I live the struggle in the sense that even though I have two scholarships that’s almost paying for my tuition, I still got to have three jobs to just make it with the rent, food and everything else I have to pay.”

Supporters also rallied behind immigration reform.

“We have a broken immigration system, and there are people in our community who have been deported,” said City Councilmember Jesse Arreguin, who attended the rally. “We can no longer divide families and use (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) as a way to try to suppress workers’ rights.”

Mitchell Handler covers academics and administration. Contact him at mhandler@dailycal.org and follow him on Twitter @mitchellhandler.

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Right now, we have a unique opportunity to draw the nation’s first ever “student district” through the city’s redistricting process. Of the seven proposals submitted by residents, five of them include a student district. As the Council considers which map to adopt for the next decade, both students and the citywide community should consider the benefits of having a student on the City Council.

A student district will institutionalize the dialogue between the campus and the citywide community. Currently, city-student relations rely on informal communication between student organizations and individual Council members.

Council members do their best to communicate with students, but we deserve someone who is actively and continuously advocating for our issues. The only way that we’re going to create more affordable student housing, bring stores and restaurants that students want to Berkeley and reduce crime near campus is by electing a representative who knows what it’s like to be affected by our issues. A student district, with a current or recent student on the council, will ensure that students have this kind of representation and a voice in city debates. Councilmember Laurie Capitelli was recently quoted in a Daily Cal column stating that “there has not been a venue for students to articulate their concerns.” A student district would ensure that City Hall would be such a venue.

This institutionalization of city-student dialogue will not only benefit students; it’s good for everyone in Berkeley. Mayor Tom Bates often cites the city’s Climate Action Plan goals to help the environment by decreasing our carbon footprint. But students already live in the densest housing and overwhelmingly use public transit to get to class or work! Students already play a major role in helping the city meet our Climate Action Plan goals, and could contribute greatly to increased sustainability in the future if the City taps into their valuable knowledge.

Likewise, the citywide community will also benefit if we reduce our “brain drain” and incentivize more young people (that is, recent Cal graduates) to live in Berkeley after graduation. We should aim to create more projects like the Skydeck, an incubator for startups right in Downtown Berkeley, which provide jobs and an innovation pipeline for Berkeley grads. By creating high-tech and higher-wage jobs, recent graduates can be the engine of a burgeoning, sustainable Berkeley economy. Keeping students here will attract knowledge-based industry and bring more revenue to the city. But once again, the best way to find out what will keep students here after graduation is to ask them. Even better: have a student on Council who can channel that perspective into economic development and housing policies.

Even with these undeniable benefits of having a student on City Council, there have been concerns that a student Councilmember would be politically isolated. (They would be just 1 vote out of 9). However, this fear is not only unfounded — it implies that having zero votes is better than having one. Policy-making at all levels of government requires deal-making and consensus. A sole Councilmember cannot write laws alone; legislating requires building coalitions. The point of having a student representative is not that it will magically solve all our problems, but it will give students a seat at the table and allow our voices to be heard.

Last fall, Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Arreguin and Wozniak all expressed support for a student district. The mayor himself claimed that “if (Measure R) passes, we will actually create a student district. And I’m committed to that campus district … I’m committed not just to talk about it … Let’s have a student on the council. Let’s have a student there voting for their own interest.”

We need to hold our elected officials accountable to that statement, and we need to lobby them to create the student district that we deserve. Student political participation is at an all-time high: The ASUC registered over 8,500 new students to vote last fall. With higher student turnout following those registration drives in student precincts, Berkeley students were a major reason that Measure R passed overwhelmingly and Measure S failed. Students can be a grassroots political force, and we (the students and the City) should work together to craft policy that moves our city forward.

But we can’t do this without the help of every Cal student! There are two ways you can help convince City Council to create a student district. First, attend the CityCouncil redistricting public hearing on May 7 (more info at BerkeleyStudentDistrict.com/events/). Second, like us on Facebook (Facebook.com/BerkeleyStudentDistrict/) to stay informed. Working together with our neighbors in the city, we can create a student district, make our voices heard and bring new and innovative perspectives to city policy.
Shahryar Abbasi is the ASUC external affairs vice president. Noah Efron and Michael Manset are UC Berkeley students who have worked on the redistricting issue with Abbasi.

Contact the opinion desk at opinion@dailycal.org.

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Berkeley Fire Department’s Community Emergency Response Team organized the annual drill to promote community preparedness in the event of a disaster. The one-day event will include light search-and-rescue CERT classes and neighborhood group exercises.

“It can be an individual, community, business — it’s open to everybody,” said Aaron Lee, assistant fire chief at Berkeley Fire Department. “Last year, we had 900 participants. We’re trying to double that.”

The event, which will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., will include a meeting at noon at the Frances Albrier Community Center to go over disaster preparation. The event also urges citizens to register for the Berkeley Emergency Notification System, a system that calls residents with alerts about city emergencies.

This year’s drill will focus on fire prevention and damage assessment, according to Matt Mitchell, a board member of the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association. Neighborhood groups will participate in setting up a simulated command center, sending people to the fire department, checking home fire extinguishers and first-aid kits and performing simulated checks for building damage or injuries.

“When the earthquake hits, (people can) go around the neighborhood to see if everyone’s OK, put out the fires if they can,” Mitchell said.

CERT and the fire department have been spreading the word with banners around the city, sending thousands of fliers home with students and handing out pamphlets at senior centers, farmers markets and the BART station. Mitchell said that the city has had other smaller emergency drills in the past, but this is the best outreach attempt he has seen yet.

“This year, we’ve put out a greater effort,” Mitchell said.

The City Council has also been meeting to discuss how to spend funds that go toward spreading awareness about disaster preparedness and providing supply kits to caches around the city, according to Councilmember Jesse Arreguin.

“(Council members) are not just policymakers (but also) outreachers and community organizers,” Arreguin said.

Arreguin highlighted the lack of preparedness in West and South Berkeley due to the fact that emergency caches are predominantly distributed in the Berkeley Hills. He added that he and other council members are currently trying to let community members know about the citywide drill by sending out alerts on email lists and working with existing disaster-preparedness groups.

“By increasing funding, by doing more outreach and providing more research, we can do a better job of making sure our community is prepared in the event of a national disaster,” Arreguin said.

Contact Tara Hurley at thurley@dailycal.org.

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The first faction consists of Max Anderson, Jesse Arreguin and Kriss Worthington. They are referred to as the “WAA” coalition, but I like to call them “The Three Musketeers” because they’re the more outspokenly progressive members of the council and are known for fighting for the “causes of the people.”

The other five are “The Clique.”

Tommy B. gets to be ASB President, Linda Maio is Everyone’s Best Friend Forever, Laurie Capitelli is the Sarcastic Kid on the Debate Team, Gordon Wozniak the Nerd, Darryl Moore the Kid Who Never Talks and Susan Wengraf the Dozer.

It’s the Breakfast Club, Berkeley style.

The Three Musketeers and The Clique clash on the most controversial of issues, with The Three Musketeers consistently losing out.

However, these two lively factions may not last forever. With the upcoming redistricting process, it’s very possible that district lines may be redrawn in such a way as to favor certain members and disadvantage others.

Rather than try to understand redistricting — a very important process that is now a whole different ballgame for Berkeley due to the passage of Measure R last fall — myself and its potential implications for a “student district,” I hit up a few of our lovely council members.

Arreguin explained in an email that “In an ideal situation, redistricting is a technical process in which legislative district boundaries are drawn to achieve equal population in each district, to protect the principle of one person, one vote.’”

But, of course, we don’t live in an ideal situation that speaks so diplomatically, so there’s sure to be drama.

Clique members Wengraf and Bates both expressed enthusiasm about seeing the new maps that are due to the city clerk on Friday, March 15, while Wozniak chimed in with an email that he believed these efforts to keep “communities of interest together” was an example of “participatory democracy alive and well in Berkeley.” What a PC group of folks we got here.

Bates was especially keen on having the maps “make sense” — “I want boundaries that make sense, lines that make sense.” But what makes a boundary or line sensible? One that pleases a certain side? The Clique certainly sounds genuinely interested in what the public has to propose and probably has the city’s best interests at heart.

Not everyone agrees, though. People’s Princess Worthington noted in an email that, “Even in Berkeley we have had … lines drawn to include specific candidates in a district and block candidates out of a district.” Arreguin backs up his buddy, saying, “Measure R … opens the door for Councilmembers to politicize the redistricting process and draw lines that punish opponents. This particular City Council is partisan and sometimes more petty than professional.“

Guys, this is like Gossip Girl for Berkeley nerds, so pay attention.

When I asked Wengraf and Bates what they thought of the idea that redistricting could be done in a way that would hurt certain council members, Bates said, “I don’t think that’s even possible,” and Wengraf scoffed, “I think that’s a very paranoid approach for redistricting … if you are a strong candidate, I don’t think it’s a problem.”

Can we please pop the popcorn and get this show on the road already?

I know I shouldn’t condone political drama for the sake of my own entertainment, but let’s be real — do we honestly think this is going to end any other way than in bloodshed?

Arreguin added that he hopes the city can have a “grown-up” discussion on this topic. Unless your last name is Solo, hope is pretty much futile.

We can strive as much as we want to make sure redrawn lines are objective, rational and sensible, but at the end of the day, there’s no way politics doesn’t come into this.

If you’ve reached the end of this column and you’re thinking, “Wow, this is gonna be a shitshow,” then I’ve done my job. If you aren’t thinking that, here’s some logic for you:

1) The Three Musketeers (more like two, as Anderson was nowhere to be found) don’t like the implications of redistricting.

2) The Clique does.

3) Put them in a mixer and blend well. You’ll get a dirty martini, shaken not stirred.

Makes sense, right?

Contact Lynn Yu at lyu@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @lynnqyu.

The post There will be blood appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Berkeley residents jumped over fire, enjoyed grilled meat and danced to traditional Persian music in celebration of the Persian New Year.

For 14 years, the lively street fair has been held in Berkeley, attracting families, students and even city officials from all over the Bay Area. In Persian tradition, Chahar Shanbeh Souri, or the festival of fire, is held on the last Tuesday of winter and acts as a prelude to the Persian New Year. The festival is famous for the ancient tradition of jumping over a bonfire to “(bid) farewell to winter,” said Shohreh Terman, a Persian teacher at Berkeley’s Persian Center.

The small fires at the festival were a huge attraction for children and adults alike. But they were just one of many. With the festival spanning an entire block, booths for kebabs, Persian pastries and henna lined up one after the other. It is the largest celebration of its kind in the East Bay, said Behnoush Babzani, the event’s master of ceremonies.

The event, organized by the Persian Center, has grown considerably in size over the years. Last year, more than 1,000 people attended, Babzani said. The crowd Tuesday night appeared just as large. The city of Berkeley has even helped fund the festival for the past several years.

“It’s a major local event, a very important cultural event,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin, who has been coming to the event for the past five years.

Many, like Arreguin, are returning attendees. For Farah Huibari, Tuesday marked her sixth time attending.

“It’s very nice,” Huibari said. “You get to see some friends and try good food. It sort of reminds me of the stuff we used to do as children back at home.”

For many Persian attendees, the celebration was more than just a tradition — it was an opportunity to catch up with old acquaintances and others of the East Bay Persian community.

“It’s great — a chance to see all these Persian people,” said Leila Jam, a second-time attendee.

Others, however, were there mainly for the party.

“We are having a good time,” said local Shehab Parnianchi. “I really like the music. It’s a great gathering.”

The Persian Center will also be holding a Norouz, or New Year, celebration next Wednesday, March 20, which will include “dinner, music and dancing,” according to the Persian Center website.

Contact Alison Fu at afu@dailycal.org.

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Steinberg finds herself among a growing group of people who work in Berkeley but reside outside the city — often due to the city’s high living costs.

“I never thought I’d leave Berkeley because of the creative diversity,” she said. “My work and business is here … (but) my husband and I couldn’t find a place in Berkeley that was affordable.”

Only 17.1 percent of Berkeley jobs are held by city residents, according to the city’s quarterly economic development report released Tuesday. By contrast, nearly 44 percent of Berkeley jobs were held by Berkeley residents in the 1990s, according to a city report compiled in 2000.

“We have a giant economic divide,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “If you’re getting minimum wage working at a job, you can’t afford to live in the city of Berkeley.”

Though Steinberg owns her own business and dislikes commuting, she finds it less expensive to live in neighboring Oakland. In 1980, Steinberg’s rent for a large one-bedroom apartment was $250. By the time she left in 1995, rent had increased to $650.

Even in the last decade, rental prices have risen dramatically in Berkeley. In 2002, a two-bedroom unit in Berkeley cost $1,650 a month. By the end of 2012, the same unit averaged $1,995.

This issue also extends to houses in the city. Berkeley has one of the most expensive real estate markets in the Bay Area, with average home values exceeding $500,000, said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin.

The city suffers from a disparity between the supply of housing and the demand for homes, according to Polly Armstrong, CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce.

“The desirability of Berkeley and the growth of the campus has far outpaced our ability to get housing built,” Armstrong said. “People were being priced out … A better way of dealing with the problem might be to build more housing.”

For Jacquelyn McCormick, a Berkeley resident who also works in Berkeley, the city’s unique environment and culture have kept her here, although she acknowledges the high housing costs.

“There’s the ability to discuss and debate points of view that just doesn’t really exist in many other places,” she said. “It’s a very intellectually stimulating environment … (but) there’s a schism between people who can afford to live here and the people who are barely making it.”

Arreguin believes there must be more done in this city to address this issue, such as building more housing close to where people work and creating public transit areas that may encourage people to live in the city.

“That was the best part of my life — to eliminate any type of commute, to walk to work or go home for lunch,” Steinberg said. “Berkeley is about being local, so when people have to live in Oakland, there’s a disconnect there … It’s vital to the local economy that we should be able to make housing available.”

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

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Mayor Tom Bates hosted a forum last Thursday concerning the revitalization of Telegraph. According to Berkeleyside, plans have been put forth to construct new projects on the empty lots of Haste Street and Telegraph Avenue; other proposals include improving lighting on the street along with adding Wi-Fi capabilities.

This is usually what much of the talk over rejuvenating Telegraph looks like — “projects, development, buzzword, buzzword, projects.” New storefronts are great. New lighting is even better.

But more often than not, people fail to mention the elephant in the room. I don’t know if it’s because we want to be politically correct or if there seems to be no lasting solution to this issue, but it has to be said: What are we to do with Telegraph’s homeless population?

Ask UC Berkeley students about Telegraph. They’ll tell you the street is “colorful,” “quirky,” “lively” and “cultural”; they’ll also tell you that it’s “dirty,” “grungy,” “sketchy” and, if you missed it the first time, “dirty.” It’s impossible to escape a conversation about Telegraph without someone mentioning “hobos” and “weed.”

Measure S, a failed ballot measure supported strongly by Bates that would have banned sitting on commercial sidewalks such as Telegraph, was an attempt to address just this issue. While the measure was poorly formulated, I can give kudos to the man for at least trying to take action.

The measure was fortunately voted down, and now we’re back to square one, skirting the “homeless problem” with enthusiastic plans for development and excited chatter over amping up night life. But you are never going to have a substantial nightlife on the street if you can’t guarantee student safety by mitigating, or at least reducing, the homeless presence.

The homeless people that populate the street may be there because of circumstances out of their hands, may suffer from mental health issues or may be caught in a cycle of inescapable poverty and depression. You can sympathize and fight for their cause; you can be PC about it and try to avoid it entirely by focusing solely on building, building, building.

At the end of the day, the harsh truth, no filter, is this: You can have all the pretty restaurants and storefronts you want, but as long as much of the student population finds the homeless population “scary” or “annoying,” and I assure you that there are far more students who are disgusted by the “hobos” rather than sympathetic toward them, Telegraph will never attain the vivacity that College or Solano avenues have achieved.

I’m not being insensitive to the homeless population’s plight. I’m not refusing to acknowledge that it’s imperative that the city offer more services to the homeless. I’m simply noting that if your end goal is “revitalization,” a considerable homeless or “drifter” culture and a thriving, modern student-oriented Telegraph cannot coexist.

Do I have facts and research backing up that last statement? No. That’s an intuition derived from two and half years of close observation. You may have a different intuition, and if you do believe that the two can go hand in hand, then tell me this: How do we work toward that happy medium?

Councilmember Jesse Arreguin has put forth the Compassionate Sidewalks Plan, designed to form a committee to examine the causes of homelessness and to improve existing laws and services. This sounds promising, but I fear that once again, this is one of those “Let’s have conversations and hold meetings! Let’s give reports on the status of things! Let’s spew out buzzword after buzzword and try not to offend anyone!” It sounds like a classic recipe for talk turning into talk about talk.

As Councilmember Kriss Worthington noted at last Thursday’s meeting, “I’ve seen most of the people who are in this room at one, two, three or 30 meetings over the course of the last 10 years … having another 30 meetings is not something to be greatly looked forward to and desired.”

Ironically, this column adds to that chorus of voices that are talking and not acting. I’m well aware. I’m one more person joining in on that “discourse” and “conversation,” writing instead of acting. Words can inform and enlighten, but they cannot clean the sidewalk or juice the street.

Everyone agrees that Telegraph has potential. The question over revitalizing Telegraph, then, is not, “How do we go about it?,” or, “What should we do?” or even “When will it finally happen?” Rather, it’s “Why hasn’t it already happened?”

Perhaps it’s because we like to hear the sound of our own voices a little too much.

Contact Lynn Yu at lyu@dailycal.org or follow her on Twitter: @lynnqyu.

The post Talking on Telegraph. Stop. appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The state of California is expected to see a $500 million cut due to sequestration in coming months, which will influence the scope of health, community services, law enforcement and education programs provided throughout the state and in Berkeley.

While the city has yet to receive precise details on the nature, timing and placement of the sequester’s cuts, city officials grimly anticipate the consequences for various social services.

“Our community in Berkeley, along with communities in California and across the nation, will feel the impact of sequestration,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin. “It’s really unfortunate that Congress did not try to find a solution. It is compromising our economy, resulting in loss of jobs and cuts to education.”

Arreguin noted that those reliant on the city’s social services, such as senior citizens, the disabled and low-income to working-class families, will be hit especially hard due to these cuts.

“I think it’s going to spread a lot of pain,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “The different nonprofit organizations that get these grants are the safety net that provide extremely important programs to poor people. There will be pain spread around the city.”

The Housing and Community Services Department of Berkeley projected that an 8.2 percent decrease in federal funding would result in a $666,000 reduction in the next fiscal year. This will impact services including city staffing, funding for affordable housing development and rental subsidies for homeless clients. Health services, such as the senior citizen nutrition program and vaccinations for children, will also be impacted.

Statewide cuts to primary and secondary education and law enforcement grants will also impact the city’s public schools and safety services. The Berkeley Unified School District estimates an approximately $300,000 reduction for the 2013-14 fiscal year, according to Deputy Superintendent Javetta Cleveland.

Berkeley Police Department has recognized that it will be impacted and is currently evaluating data to understand the extent of the effects, according to Officer Jennifer Coats, spokesperson for BPD.

But due to the lack of specifics regarding how deeply city services will be impacted, the city currently remains unable to take any immediate action in response, according to Worthington and Arreguin.

However, Worthington expressed hope that Congress will come up with a solution before these cuts come into effect. At this point, the city is still looking at what is possible, such as lobbying in Washington, Worthington said.

“The sequester really will have a detrimental impact on Berkeley,” Arreguin said. “The longer this goes on, the worse the situation will become.”

Contact Sophie Ho at sho@dailycal.org.

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