The county says we need 17,000 signatures to recall the Mayor.
You can help. Email us and we'll help you gather signatures.
Gatherors will be on both sides of town almost daily. We have 58 days from Dec 6 to do this. This is sure to give the Mayor a wake up call.
If you see a table at your favorite grocery store, come on over and sign.
Also be sure to see if the Mayor's stooges are harassing the signature gathers. Do not expect him to play nice, because that is not his style.
If we get enough good signatures a new election will be set, probably for June, and anyone who wishes can run for Mayor.
Add your comments to any section of the blog, or email the blog a new section and we will try to publish it. Make suggestions or corrections to the blog. It is your blog, our blog, Berkeley's blog. Give us your thoughts. The email link is at the top of the blog.
An interesting side note is that the Alameda County recorder says that out of 105,000 or so residents of Berkeley we have 70,000 registered voters.
This is obvious nonsense. There must be 20,000 or more people who no longer live here who are still registered to vote. I wonder how many drop back into town to vote, or are the politicians still "voting the cemetery."
Politics in Berkeley are somewhat reminiscent of Chicago.
Why recall the Mayor of Berkeley?
Mayor Tom Bates...
- does not listen to the constituents of Berkeley
- suppresses the concerns of citizens to satisfy developers
- takes federal HUD Section 8 money (that should be used to help qualified tenants with rents) and slots it for developers so they can build high-density, modern apartment buildings in the heart of downtown, that will either remain empty, or be filled with students and young professionals. ( They are primarily filled w/ individuals NOT from Berkeley-- you might also want to know how units were left unfilled once people had died and the City continued to pay the developers rent on behalf of the deceased.)
- Uses the "Green" movement as a pretext to overdevelop town, cut down trees, and transfer city, state, and federal funds to developers.
- voted to rid Berkeley of Iceland, a landmark skating rink.
- Does not notify the public in advance of important meetings
- Provides no evidence for the claims he makes
- No accommodation of those who wish to express dissent
- Says, "Let's focus on obtaining federal/state funds now, and we'll worry about the final plans later," whether he's talking about procuring funding for the Ashby transit village or the BRT
- On the Warm water pool--he should be supporting adaptive reuse and sustainability--the City's own letter to the BUSD stated that the building should be saved. Bates could apply for federal and State dollars to develop a preservation program vs using City GF dollars. He looks to us to carry the entire burden vs leveraging our dollars
- another recall site is: http://berkeleyrecall.com/
