Berkeley

I would jump on any chance to get out of school, I would've been on of those absences

i mean exactly!

Ugh, I lived on Evelyn near Gilman for a stretch (so just south) and have only the fondest of memories :/

I know HR people are important for corporations and organizations, but in my experience they are unnecessarily harsh, mostly looking to punish people instead of trying to understand them

My best friend graduated from Boalt Hall Law School at Berkeley and served as an HR person for a while, but he was always very understanding

actually a lot of the heat is coming from inside the house which is why i should get these posts deleted, we’re supposed to stand union strong

I def wouldn't want to be in school administration these days because there doesn't seem to be a well established standard rubric for what should or shouldn't be communicated out. Berkeley High had what turned out to be a legitimate shooting threat a year ago and they didn't tell anyone until after the person had been apprehended; people were fucking pissed about it and how it was swept under the rug (the kid had ghost gun and AR15 parts, and was trying to recruit other students to shoot up the school; one had turned him in). The new principal at Albany High at least sounds like he's learned from watching this situation spiral out of control.

Really interesting to read the first part of the thread, one forgets sometimes how "Berkeley is dying" has been a thing people say for a really long time

It's dead now though. this year is the first time in 30+ years I seriously thought "alright that's enough, I would like to live elsewhere". Probably not going to move though.

I was just there and it was great (but I don't live there, I can only speak from the perspective of a frequent visitor)

yeah the things that drag on the city are things that are issues for residents more than visitors (failure to keep up infrastructure, largely). lots of things that are sucky are basically things that have always been sucky; IMO crime is seems about the same as it's ever been, maybe there was a dip for a bit there in the 2000/2010's or something. the city government has always been and continues to be utterly useless and annoying.

the traffic circles are fairly new and also super annoying!

the absolute worst one is the one they put right by Berkeley Bowl West. They already put in awful curb bumpouts that meant when you turned right coming out of BB you often hit the curb; then they stuck an approx 3x3 circle (demarcated not by concrete but by some kind of industrial rubber) in the middle of the intersection, making the space even tighter. The city's hostility toward automobiles is really annoying. They've removed like 75% of the parking downtown, ensuring that I hardly ever go there.

there are 2 blocks downtown on kala bagai way that require you to BACK INTO A PARKING SPOT. first off: people who back into parking spots anywhere are the worst humans on earth. The city requiring people to do this is just fucking stupid, I have absolutely no idea why they did this.

anyway i sound like a grumpy old man now which I guess I am, and that's what happens when you live in a town for over 30 years.

They installed mandatory back in spaces on San Pablo in Oakland by the Building/ Planning/ Fire dept … I just ignore the sign and park normal

back up spots on haste next to people’s park too

also fuck Rasputin for using the old Cody’s space as a warehouse, they should let me in there with a shopping cart

actually the back in spots on haste kinda make sense from a… topological (?)point of view.. the street is one way and if they had oriented the spots to make it easier to pull in, the cars would all be facing downhill… which is something that maybe new planners try to avoid? if you were to pull into these spots as they are. It would be like a greater than 135 degree turn so kinda awkward. idk.

also fuck Rasputin for using the old Cody’s space as a warehouse, they should let me in there with a shopping cart

seriously, it was nice when that was open as a store; dude has been hoarding great LPs for a million years and you could find great copies of so much stuff. it's hard to believe it functions better economically as a storage space than an actual store. That space is great, just utterly wasted opportunity. someday he will die and someone will do something with it.

the spots on haste were reversed, those used to face a normal direction from what I recall. or was haste a 2 way street? I really can't remember. I do remember you didn't have to park like that there and now you do, hence, I do not park there.

I think it must be a traffic-calming measure. The three-block stretch of Bay St west of Laguna St in SF was converted to back-in parking after two kids were injured there one morning on their way to school

also fuck Rasputin for using the old Cody’s space as a warehouse,

i was just by there again a few hours ago and it annoyed me all over again. The original idea behind that space when he took it over was to have a bookstore, record store, cafe, and performance space. It's absolutely perfect for that, and I would imagine that something like this could do well, particularly if it stayed open late (like until midnight). Why he didn't do this is beyond me. I hope someone does.

Didn't Rasputin have an L.A. location back in the 80s? I used to know one of the buyers there.

No, forgive me, I was thinking of Aron's.

Why he didn't do this is beyond me. I hope someone does.

Well, he opened the Mad Monk Center for Anachronistic Media, which did some of what you're talking about, but it failed as a business and closed quickly. Ken doesn't know how to make a business like that.

yes, that's what I was referring to (meaning, why he didn't do what he said he was going to do in the first place; the answer is clearly 'because he is a dumbass').

caught the aftermath of this; headed down here to catch a movie at 8pm last night and the entire outdoor mall was roped off and swarming with more police than I have ever seen anywhere. if I'd bothered to look at nextdoor (or, apparently, twitter, which I can't look at now since I deleted my account) before we left I wouldn't have bothered.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/bayarea/article/one-person-stabbed-during-civil-unrest-at-bay-18333550.php

(article makes this sound less awful than what I heard from people who were there, which was that it was basically a riot involving up to 400 kids...people in the movie theater were evacuated when someone came in and said "there is a massive fight happening, everyone has to leave now"...and people were like "why are you sending us out into a fight?" though apparently this fight also spilled over into the theaters themselves)

there wasn't even any looting????

there was apparently a fair amount of small theft in bay street and then further theft after the principals moved over to target in emeryville, where apparently they were riding bikes all over the store. but it seemed more like...terrorizing people

a gun went off at bay street and then a girl got stabbed in the neck, haven't heard any update on her condition. Kamilah Priforce, quickly becoming one of my least favorite local politicians, is all over nextdoor talking about the pain these kids are in. I'm like, I saw these kids, they did not look like they were in pain. they were having fun.

7). Bay Street has been the target of looting, violence and massive brawls mostly by unaccompanied juveniles. Are there any programs, policies or technologies you would consider exploring to deter this behavior that ultimately hurts Emeryville and the resident amenity and retail tax revenue this shopping center generates for the city’s general fund?

As I have mentioned in the League of Women Voters candidate forum, they are kids, our babies, and often there is a racial component wherein a group of predominantly Black and Brown children are viewed and treated differently than a gaggle of White children.

However, they still pose an issue, and social disturbances should not be allowed to continue unabated.

I’ve discussed this issue with a current councilmember and they stressed that Emeryville residents would not be open to surveillance that infringes on their privacy rights. I see their point; however, there are things we can still do.

I strongly support additional security cameras subsidized by the city in places where there are crimes, violent and nonviolent, and that includes the kids at Bay Street mall.

I have scheduled a Safety-Action Community Forum at Bay Street mall for October 28th, 2022 wherein matters like these are discussed and I will introduce the idea of a reporting system wherein facial recognition is used to identify participants involved disturbing events at places like Bay Street, and if they happen to be minors, their schools are alerted to their behaviors almost instantly.

As it relates to privacy, as long as those being recorded have access to their data, we can create a system that is humane but precise in its responsiveness in addition to preventing other crimes like child sex trafficking.

I strongly support additional security cameras subsidized by the city in places where there are crimes, violent and nonviolent, and that includes our young people at Bay Street mall.

https://evilleeye.com/news-commentary/2022-emeryville-city-council-candidate-questionnaire-north-hollis-resident-kalimah-priforce/

So many red flags there..

definitely a bunch of child sex trafficking will be prevented ... I mean, isn't that why people go to Bay St ... to engage in child sex trafficking? It's not really about Ikea and the Apple Store and I forget what else is there ... also ugh at "our babies" ... it bothers me because it's this very binary way of responding/viewing behavior that is actually more complex & nuanced. They are not "babies" ... they have agency and are capable of doing fucked up shit.

those are a bunch of absurd solutions. the real solution is have the cops actually detain people when they break the law. one person witnessed a cop watch one teen beat another one senseless, he never intervened, never crossed the street, just stood there watching. no one was arrested after this fracas.

i mean is this a black politician actually saying he wants facial recognition with cameras? what the ever living fuck. that's preposterous. I do think cameras help (they put them in the park near where I live after several daytime shootings, one of which happened during a kids birthday party) and the violence dropped immensely; but there's no facial recognition involved, the police can just review the footage after an incident.

Um, just here to point out that teenagers certainly have agency, but that trauma has ways of showing itself in the strangest of ways— sometimes by engaging in disruptive, anti-social behavior that then traumatizes others.

Looks like People's Park days may be numbered... they're turning it into a Mad Max compound

UC Berkeley takes over People's Park with walls of shipping containers

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/uc-berkeley-takes-over-peoples-park-18589002.php

It's not an especially nice park, but the University has so many other properties nearby... not sure why they're so adamant about this parcel

they want to force more students to pay for expensive housing

I'm in full support of putting student housing on this, but there is a court injunction preventing it right now, so why they are bothering with this absurd farce at the moment is beyond me.

They should just tear down the eyesore Ken S built at 2501 Haste St and put the housing there

that thing looked better in the plans than it did in the execution

they should preserve that public bathroom, I imagine more drug transactions have occurred there than almost any place on earth

i will miss being able to park easily there, no one seems like to park next to PP but I've never had an issue.

I'm in full support of putting student housing on this, but there is a court injunction preventing it right now, so why they are bothering with this absurd farce at the moment is beyond me.

Like, I definitely spent a fair amount of time there when I ran away from home as a young’un, it has a lot of memories for me and I learned a lot there, but I realize that my reasons are mostly sentimental and a hatred for Cal

your memories are also outdated because it's just a place where people deal meth and fentanyl now (and where people die), and not somewhere travelers and kids who don't have anywhere to go hang out.

no shade at table but keeping California looking the same for sentimental reasons is at the root of a lot of problems

akm otm there. this park hasn't been that in a long time.

So the solution is to let a university build hideous housing on the site? Please.

yes. reducing homelessness will help reduce drug overdoses.

If you look at the images on google map, it's been a construction site for a long time... trees cut down, etc.